Peacework is a 501(c)3 global nonprofit organization that engages communities, academic institutions, and corporations in innovative cross-sector solutions for sustainable development around the world and across seven development disciplines: agriculture, business, education, engineering, health, public service, and technology.

The past five summers, Global Health Initiative members went on a two week-long trip to the highlands of Guatemala. In the mountain town of Santiago Atitlán, on the shores of scenic Lake Atitlán, students worked in teams to install twenty ONIL stoves in local homes, helped students at ADISA, a school for kids with disabilities, built bee boxes for for a bee cooperative in HueHuetenango, built a playground for a local school, toured a health clinic in the village, and helped out in gardening.

In their free time, students enjoyed boating, shopping at the local market, sampling the cuisine, taking cultural tours of the town, learning about the history of the Tzutujil Mayans, visiting religious centers, touring clinics and hospitals, engaging in capacity building sessions, visiting weaving cooperatives, and hiking the mountains around the lake. 

This year, GHI will be returning to Santiago to continue our partnership with Peacework and the community in our collective goal of improving the quality of life for the people who call Lake Atitlán home.

Malawi is commonly referred to as ‘The Warm Heart of Africa." Part of Africa's Great Rift Valley, Malawi is landlocked between Tanzania, Zambia and Mozambique, covering nearly 118,500 square km (roughly the size of Pennsylvania). During the past four summers, GHI sent a group to Mulanje, Malawi, where students volunteered at Mulanje Mission hospital in the palliative care, nutritional rehabilitation, and maternal health clinics. Students also worked in partnership with the community-based organization Othakharaka to develop and give presentations on health, hygiene, and malaria prevention throughout rural communities.

Students also had the opportunity to embark on a three-day mountain summit up Mount Mulanje and experience a two-day African safari.

For the past three summers, GHI collaborated on a project in partnership with the Piyali Learning Center (PLC) in Kolkata, India. The PLC is an innovative center that offers a school and safe shelter for young girls, as well as adult literacy programs and a vocational training center. The center invests in girl's and women's educational and leadership programs to empower females, with an ultimate goal to reduce the high rates of human trafficking in this area.

To ensure the Piyali community has access to quality medical care, the group worked on the construction of a Community Medical Unit, as well as on a program that ensures mothers and children have access to safe, secure, and qualified women's health service through training of local women in basic maternal health care.GHI plans to return to Piyali this upcoming summer 2017 to continue to work with PLC in their goal to improve the quality of life for girls and women in their community.