Anna Pollock is a Take Five scholar from Oakton, Va. Originally a health and society and psychology double major with a Spanish minor, she is studying Latin American politics and culture during her fifth year. This summer, she is planning to serve as a counselor at a camp called Campo Amigo Ecuador run by American Youth Understanding Diabetes Abroad (AYUDA).
What is your Take Five about?
My Take Five focuses on the relationship between politics and culture in Latin America. I spent a semester in Valparaso, Chile and took classes at a university and volunteered in an orphanage for sexually abused girls. I conducted a self-designed research project where I studied the elevated obesity rates of Aymara (indigenous) children in rural northern Chile.
What inspired your work at the camp?
The camp will help educate and empower these children to better manage their condition so they won’t suffer from preventable complications, like death and diabetes, which occur at much higher rates in communities without adequate resources to treat them. By working at the camp, I want to increase awareness of the complications of diabetes in impoverished and underfunded communities, as well as teach these children how to live healthier, happier lives.
How will you fund your work?
As part of my commitment to AYUDA, I have pledged to raise $4,500 to pay for my trip, as well as for five campers to attend. Without each counselor’s contribution, these campers would not be able to afford to attend the camp. I am currently planning several fundraisers in Rochester, as well as accepting individual donations at http://www.firstgiving.com/annapollock.
What are your long-term plans?
I am planning to stay in Ecuador through October, setting up some work with doctors in a city called Puyo in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Eventually, I hope to return to the United States to work for an organization that seeks to educate and help improve the living conditions of the impoverished.
Scott is a member of the class of 2008.
