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VfP Partner Highlight
Voicing the Volunteer Experience:
Who: Nancy Maaty
Volunteer Host Organization: Hands Along the Nile Development Services, Inc
Where: Cairo & Minia, Egypt
Sector: Global Health & Education
Volunteer Activity: Teaching online tools (PubMed) to conduct evidence based research to medical professionals.
“With this trip, I realized that the only thing better than volunteering the first time, is volunteering the second time.” ─ I felt like I made a difference by going back to the country of my origin to teach the skills I have learned. At first I was worried if I had made any significant impact. But, this year I saw the importance and the demand of my presentations.
In Egypt, I presented a workshop to physicians and nursing students on the use of PubMed, a credible online medical research tool for evidence based articles. The physicians were engaged in my lectures and excited to learn a new skill through a reliable online portal to search for the most up to date medial information for their practice. It was rewarding to see the enthusiasm. Before this experience, I realized how much we take our education for granted.
The most rewarding aspect of the trip was to see the results from my trip last year and feeling that we have directly left our mark on over 350 people in Cairo and El Minia, Egypt. Now, instead of defaulting to Google, students have their entire careers to learn and become comfortable with reliable search engines like PubMed.
I have enjoyed knowing that our work is sustainable. We are not just volunteers that show up for two weeks and leave with our resources. We are volunteers that teach useful skills to leaders in the community and return in a year to see those skills being passed to other members of the community.