The Ford Motor Company Global Scholars, Governors, and U.S.-Panama Initiative Programs attended an event at the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) [1], an international public health agency with nearly 110 years of experience working to improve health and living standards of countries in the Americas. Each student had the opportunity to hear from PAHO's Regional Director of Health Promotion and the Senior Advisor for Millennium Development Goals (MDG) & Health Targets. The two speakers discussed:
- Successes of the organization since its inception
- Problems still affecting regions in the Americas and what PAHO is doing to counter these issues
Students had the opportunity to watch "Faces Tell The Story," [2] a video produced in 2002 during PAHO's centennial celebration, demonstrating the organization's mission and vision. They focus many of their efforts in Panama and the Caribbean, working on issues such as decreasing the rates of infant death, smallpox, polio and the measles. After the centennial video, the two PAHO representatives presented on "The Millenium Development Goals (MDG) and Health, a Latin American & Caribbean Perspective." The presentation focused on issues including:
- Public Health Efforts
- Niche Areas
- History of PAHO
- Importance of Millenium Development Goals
- Health and Development
The presentation also included the goals that the region is currently on track to meet targets for, which include: reducing hunger, reducing undernutrition among children, reducing infant mortality, access to drinking water and gender equity in education. It also included what the type of progress that the organization needs to keep working towards, which include: extreme poverty, maternal mortality, universal primary education, access to sanitation and environmental sustainability.
