GlobeMed is a network of university students who partner with grassroots organizations around the world to improve the health of the impoverished. Through their involvement today, students commit to a life of leadership in global health and social justice.
The GlobeMed Network currently includes 19 chapters at university campuses throughout the country and a national office in Evanston, IL. The grassroots organizations supported by GlobeMed chapters span the world from Mexico to Nepal. Since 2007, GlobeMed students have raised over $140,000 for public health projects in 21 communities around the world.
GlobeMed has transformed itself over the past decade, paralleling the tremendous changes and developments in the field of global health during the same time. In 1999, a group of students at Northwestern University formed Medical Supplies Mission providing developing regions with medical supplies from hospitals and medical supply companies in the United States. Soon after, the organization became a formalized not for profit organization called Global Medical Relief Program, which sent medical supplies to over 20 NGOs and clinics overseas and grew its network to several campuses across the US.
In 2006, several trends emerged that catalyzed Global Medical Relief Program to re-orient its direction and launch a new vision going forward. In the process, "GlobeMed" replaced "Global Medical Relief Program" as our popularly used name. Our members realized at the time that a strong model of grassroots community partnerships with health organizations had the potential to contribute more lasting and valuable improvements in health than our prior model of medical supply delivery. Furthermore, members recognized that our generation had tremendous energy and passion for global health, and that stronger education and training programs would enable students to better harness this energy.
Our first Annual Summit in March of 2007 was the beginning in a set of programs which trains students for leadership in global health. By tying action with education and training, GlobeMed now not only improves the health of communities today, but we also catalyze a generational movement of young people who care deeply about global health and have the skills to make change happen. With this new GlobeMed Model, we have (as of 2009) reached nineteen campuses across the country.
For more information about GlobeMed visit www.globemed.org.
