Anniversary Photo Contest Winners
In further celebrating its 50th anniversary, the Department of Sociomedical Sciences invited all SMS students, staff, and faculty to submit contest entries in the anniversary theme “Advancing Health Equity.” Our winners’ photos represent our student experiences in their practicums abroad. Winners and finalists were featured at our culminating anniversary event!
“Rooftop”
Tijuana, Mexico, January 5, 2019
Tess Solomon, MPH Class of 2019
I spent the winter break of my second year working at a legal clinic on the US border in Tijuana. In this building each day, 50-100 asylum seekers would sit with lawyers and volunteers sharing the stories of what they were fleeing. Up here on the roof, ordained volunteers would conduct weddings to give couples legal status.
For me, this roof captures some of the heartache that invades the experience I saw there. The marriages were a way to grasp at anything that might keep a family together in our violent immigration system. With both desperation and hope, the couple would exchange plastic rings and share a box of grocery store chocolates, creating a small but critical moment of love in the middle of it all.
“A Joyful Noise”
Lesotho, Africa, August 4, 2018
Megan Ludington, MPH Class of 2019
This sweet child wanted nothing more than to be loved and to have her photo taken. She was one of the children living at St. Cecilia’s orphanage in Lesotho. I met her and many other children at the orphanage when I volunteered there for my practicum.
“The Emergence of Female Pharmacists in Marrakech, Morocco”
Marrakech, Morocco, March 20, 2019
Yasmine Makkiyah, MPH Class of 2020
This is a picture of a pharmacist at the first pharmacy in Marrakech, “named Pharmacie Koutoubia”, which opened on April 30, 1950. I spoke to her about her experiences especially as a female pharmacist in this conservative society, and contrary to my expectations, she mentioned how the number of female pharmacists in the city continues to rise. The pharmacist described how she started off in hospitality but once she got married, her husband’s traditional expectations led her to change career path because hospitality meant interacting with other men on a regular basis. After the birth of her child, the pharmacist went back to study pharmacy and was hired, among four other women, at the Koutoubia pharmacy. This picture depicts health equity by highlighting the emergence of female pharmacists in a previously male-dominated industry.