What drives us
As current Physician Assistant students we are dedicated and determined to make a difference in the health care of people who most need it.

People

Devi Chettiar (director) – I am a child of two immigrant, South Indian born parents who sacrificed a lot to raise their children in the United States.  They have brought my brother and I back to India more than 10 times before I even turned 22 years of age to show us the rich culture and the extreme poverty that we are not exposed to in the United States.  I grew a love for India and embraced my mother land for all it had to offer.  I took Indian dance, music, and language lessons for many years while keeping in the back of mind the struggle and pain of poverty I would witness each time I’d visit India.

While attending the University of Minnesota for my undergraduate degree, I pursued a Bachelors of Science degree in health and wellness, featuring a Public Health core.  I attended my first Public Health course in HIV prevention and Treatment during my Junior Year and was appalled by the lack of education and availability of treatments in India, as well as the harsh treatment of HIV infected women in India.  In this class we watched a video of HIV infected women being interviewed, and I didn’t even need to read the subtitles because they were speaking the language of the state my parents are from and where I always visit, the language being Tamil. My mother then told me that people in India don’t think it’s appropriate to talk about HIV and sex, so many people will not tell their sexual partners that they are infected, and that with a combination of not knowing about safe sex practices is a recipe for even more infections.  I promised myself that I would do something about this hugely growing problem in India.

Last year I was accepted into the University of South Dakota Physician Assistant program, and am now currently a first year student in the program.  I realized that once I receive my degree in December 2009, I will have the education, and respect needed to accomplish a really big step needed for the fight against HIV in India.  I’ve had this dream of opening a free clinic in a rural village of south India focusing on HIV prevention and treatment, and traveling all around South India to give lectures in schools about preventing HIV.  At the same time I wanted to provide an opportunity for pre-health care college students, like I myself used to be, to volunteer in a respected program to help fight HIV in India, because I know that if I was offered an opportunity like that when I was younger, I would have loved it.  Now I look forward for my dream to become a reality.

Nguyen-Ngoc Pham (assistant director) – A few years ago, I had a privilege of conducting a couple public health projects in Tamil Nadu (a state in South India) as part of my semester-long Study-Service Abroad Program from St. Olaf College.  Through four months of living among the Indian community in Tamil Nadu, I fell in love with India and her people.  Everyday living in India brought me some unique experiences.  By the end of each day, I found myself sitting in my room, quietly reflecting on the past day and contemplating on the things I saw, heard and felt.  There were days when I cried deep down in my heart, not able to withstand the heart-breaking situations of people living with poverty and diseases.  Since I was just an undergrad biology student, a lot of disappointments came when I felt helpless for not being able to diagnose and treat an old feeble man or a young terrified mother who plead me for help.  However, the biggest disappointment I had was seeing how young women of India have little help and protection against HIV/AIDS. 

Since sex-related topics and issues are very sensitive in India, especially in rural areas, young girls and women are not well informed about their own women’s health issues, particularly in the areas of STIs.  Therefore, they are the group at most risk of being infected with HIV.  Moreover, once being infected, these women do not have enough support and appropriate treatment in order to continue living a meaningful life. Stricken by this unfortunate fact, I have always wanted to do something to improve the quality of life of these women and help reduce the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in rural South India. 

At the starting of my Physician Assistant Program at University of South Dakota, I got to know Devi Chettiar, who lives down the hall from me.  I was very happy to learn that Devi’s parents’ homeland was also from Tamil Nadu, the state in which I did my public health research in India.  In addition, Devi can speak the native language there.  However, the most grateful thing I found out was that Devi has a passionate dream of building up a free clinic in South India where women infected with STIs and HIV/AIDS and their children or family can come for help, support and treatment.  Seeing a strong commitment of Devi in starting up the project, I excitedly shared with Devi my experiences in India and also my similar dream.  We started to make plans and determined to work together to make our dreams come true. I’m looking forward to finish my PA Program and start our initial trip to India in the beginning of 2010.

Organization
Our organization started September of 2007 and we continue to develop to make our project a reality.