Hello folks! Welcome to my blog. As you likely know already, my name is David Andrew, and I’m a senior at UConn who will be studying abroad in Cape Town, South Africa in Spring 2014. This blog is intended to serve as a journal of my experiences, thoughts, goals and updates as I spend this time abroad and for my future travels. For friends and family, this blog will be the best way to follow my travels and live vicariously through me, if that’s your thing. This blog will contain posts written specifically for this audience, as well as posts I will be writing for the UConn in Cape Town 2014 blog. First, some basic information about myself:
As you know, my name is David, and I’m an eighth semester student at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, Connecticut. I’m an individualized major studying Health and Social Inequality, with specific interests in public health, medical anthropology, and the socio-structural determinants of health. In Cape Town I will be interning with an organization named Treatment Action Campaign, or TAC. TAC is a nonprofit group that advocates for the availability of anti-retro viral treatments for HIV/AIDS, and addresses the social and cultural conditions and co-morbid diseases that are associated with the HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Africa. As a future public health professional, I’m fascinated by the complex global social, economic, political, and cultural factors that collectively shape the health of entire populations, and I view my internship at TAC as a valuable opportunity to learn about the socio-structural determinants that shape the HIV/AIDS epidemic, to work with HIV-positive organizers and community members to realize the community’s goals, and to further inform my decision to pursue education and employment in public health or medical anthropology.
In terms of basic information, I will be abroad in South Africa for a minimum of 3.5 months, during which time I will reside in Cape Town. My internship with TAC will be based out of the Khayelitsha Township, a black township located on the Cape Flats on the outskirts of the city. We will be living in the suburb of Rondebosch, close to the University Of Cape Town and just outside Cape Town’s city center. I will be living in a large house with over a dozen other UConn students who will also all have their own unique internship placements. Together we will take several courses taught by UConn faculty at the University of Cape Town. Barring any unforeseen developments, I will leave the U.S. on January 13, 2014, and will not return until the end of April at the very earliest, and later if I chose to travel or backpack and have sufficient funds.
Here ends my first post. If you would like to contact me in Cape Town, please email David.Andrew@uconn.edu or contact me via facebook. I will be using Google Hangout, Facetime, and Viber if you would like to have a video chat.
Best,
David
What David Does 