Meet the Student Behind GlobeMed’s Health Equity Speaker Series
Elizabeth Bolarinwa, a student intern for GlobeMed HQ, has been the driving force for this new programming.
GlobeMed’s Health Equity Speaker Series (HESS) is a monthly speaker series hosted by GlobeMed Headquarters featuring leaders in health equity. Past topics discussed have included environmental justice, reproductive rights, maternal healthcare, and more, and it’s become a staple of HQ programming. And it was all started by a GlobeMed student, Elizabeth Bolarinwa.
Elizabeth is a junior at Howard University, Co-President of GlobeMed at Howard, and an intern at GlobeMed Headquarters. She got involved in GlobeMed her freshman year after attending a mixer GlobeMed at Howard hosted in conjunction with several other campus organizations. As a freshman, Elizabeth was accepted onto the Grassroots On-site Work (GROW) team and was thrilled to be able to intern with her chapter’s partner, Nancholi Youth Organization, in Malawi. But when the pandemic hit and GROW went virtual, she suddenly found herself with a lot more time on her hands.
As Elizabeth was looking for more things to get involved with over the summer, GlobeMed HQ released their internship applications, and she applied. She started as a systems and administration intern and continued working at HQ into the school year, switching her focus to programming. One day, she was on a call with Priya Fremerman, GlobeMed’s Executive Director, and Sarah Alharsha, GlobeMed’s Learning and Engagement Coordinator, and they began discussing the possibility of integrating a speaker series into HQ’s programming.
“Priya originally had some sort of idea of having a speaker series,” Elizabeth recalls, who envisioned a series focused specifically around health equity. “It was coming from a time where there was a lot of racial tensions and things like that, and I thought, right as my views on health equity and global health equity started to develop I think it’d be really cool for students to also learn and hear things from speakers that look like me, that are people of color, that are women, that are minorities.”
While receiving some assistance on logistical issues, Elizabeth had a lot of creative freedom in designing the series. She helped pick the first speaker, Tabitha Mpamira, a consultant on sexual and gender-based violence and founder of the EDJA Foundation.
“My role at GlobeMed always turned into what I needed at that time,” Elizabeth reflects, “and at that time, I really did need to have a voice and learn how to advocate. And having the Health Equity Speaker Series did that.”
As the series progressed and expanded, Elizabeth gained more and more creative freedom and noticed more and more people responding to it. Now, the series is monthly, and Elizabeth chooses speakers and facilitates the events. The next installment, which will take place on September 23rd, will focus on imagining a more equitable vision of medical care.
“I would love for it to be something that after I leave GlobeMed continues to happen and continues to evolve,” Elizabeth says, reflecting on the future of HESS. “If we can work more with schools and GlobeMed chapters and see if they have someone that they would like to see, and even with the Student Advisory Board if they have something that they would like to see, if they would like to host a Health Equity Speaker Series, I would love to see how we can kind of play with collaboration.”
As Elizabeth has worked on the series, she’s absorbed a lot about what it means to strive for health equity. “I’ve learned there’s a role for everyone,” she says. “You’re going to mess up, and that’s okay. And then lastly, you never know who you could impact.”
