Travel should be a part of everyone's education, Dr. Richard Heinzl, founder of Medicines Sans Frontiers, the Canadian chapter of Doctors Without Borders, said Sept. 23 at the first Phi Theta Kappa satellite seminar for the fall.
The two-year national honor society selects a topic for study each year. This year's is "The paradox affluence: choices, challenges and consequences." Three more satellite seminars are scheduled.
Heinzl spoke on opportunities in a borderless world and his experiences with MSF saying it's not the bombs or bullets that affect the children but broken cities without health care or access to clean water.
Heinzl presented his information from his experiences around the world, including Africa, Indonesia and Cambodia.
People "need to keep in current with changes," he said. "Everyone has a role to play and people need to communicate. Because something's not on the front page does not mean people should still be sleepwalking through this catastrophe."
He explained his story of bringing together the Canadian chapter of MSF from presenting it to his parents to gathering up doctors willing to travel in 1988.
"If students can explain dreams in a practical way, they will be backed," he said.
An easier way to get your project started is to find a mentor to help out, after all, "they are people who are already where you want to be," Heinzl said.
"Travel is one of the richest things we can do. It should be part of everyone's education." However, travel does not have to be out of country or even out of state.
Heinzl suggested students travel to a different part of the city, speak with a stranger, take their "own personal journey of discovery."
Any travel is an experience, he said.
"Problems over here link to problems over there, but you don't have to be a doctor to help," he said.
"Africa has problems because America and other countries make it that way. Guns, bombs and the like are made in other places."
However in places like Africa, or Indonesia, where the population is rising, they have the potential to move the world in a big way with the help of other countries' technology.
He said through technology, work becomes easier; people and students should use it to better help others.
Women in Third World countries, through the Internet, can learn to read, he said. However, because vital items such as water and medicines are not downloadable, students should get involved and travel, find a project and work on it.
The remaining three seminars, Pathways out of poverty through green collar jobs: The role of scholarship in improving quality of life for urban residents Oct. 7; The geography of bliss on Oct. 21; Archaeological evidence for the origins of affluence will be Nov. 18. All seminars are at 6:30 p.m. in Room 612 of Moody.
For more information, call Jonathan Lee at 733-2555.
Be the first to comment on this article!