They call Malawi the warm heart of Africa. Ironically, with Malawi being in Winter, the temperatures are actually cooler than Houston’s around this time of year, but the people have been nothing but kind and gentle. From the students to adults to even the food, Malawi has provided an environment evidently warm. 

Just one week ago, I arrived in Blantyre, Malawi, to participate in the Rice360 Summer Internship Program for Global Health. Over the next two months, I’ll be working with the Malawi University of Business and Applied Sciences (MUBAS) alongside two MUBAS interns and a fellow Rice Intern. During my stay, I hope to accomplish many goals toward empowering local healthcare settings through engineering medical devices. The next series of weeks will have its highs and lows, of which I will update you all on my progress and personal adventures. In the meantime, however, I’d like to introduce myself. 

My name is Sanjay Senthilvelan. I am a rising sophomore at Rice University, majoring in Biochemistry and Chemistry and minoring in Global Health Technologies. I’d say my interest in global health originates from my family background. As Indian immigrants, my parents told me stories from their childhood of witnessing patients being failed by hospitals paralyzed by a lack of resources. When we traveled to visit family in the country, I saw what my parents spoke about firsthand. 

This experience of mine is a large reason why I want to become a doctor and why I took a global health intro class during my very first semester at Rice. I learned a more empathetic and robust perspective on global health when I had deep conversations with the professor and TAs (one of whom had gone to Malawi last year!). The semester furthered my interests, leading me to take an appropriate design for global health engineering class that spring, a leadership role in the Rice Global Health club, and compete to place 3rd in the annual Rice Global Health design-a-thon. At every step, I learned more and grew an appreciation for the work of engineers and the doctors and nurses on the ground. 

I hope to continue that learning and admiration while I’m in Malawi, where I’ll try to embody the charming Malawian warmth as I work hard to further Rice360 and MUBAS’s efforts.

This is a picture of Paula and I with Ranken and Tatyana (the MUBAS interns) at a KFC (yeah, KFC!!!) a short walk from MUBAS.