![]() ![]() In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, no one had answers to much of anything. Global learning helps us understand that we are not alone. Too often, we feel we are the only people struggling with a particular problem, whether it’s fighting for universal health care access, healing from the trauma of racism, or improving maternal health outcomes. Similarly, in another upcoming essay, Fabiola Cineas, a reporter on race and policy for Vox Media, will chronicle her journey to New Zealand to learn about their experience in truth, healing, and reparations for the Māori people and what countries like the United States can learn from their blueprint for redress and atonement. Her experience should be of interest to anyone struggling to address poor maternal outcomes in their community. Binagwaho emphasizes the importance of addressing transportation needs critical to ensuring access to care. This means engaging with humility and actively listening. In her upcoming essay, she notes how critical it is to solve the problem expectant moms are actually facing-not what we assume the problem to be. Agnes Binagwaho is a pediatrician in Rwanda where the maternal mortality ratio has dropped by 60 percent. Our desire to learn has taken us all around the world, because a community looking to reduce violence or a mother praying for a healthy baby is more concerned with the outcome than where the solution originated.ĭr. That is the premise behind RWJF’s Reimagined in America webinar series, where we facilitate conversations and discussion around what’s working abroad on issues ranging from transforming health care to building community power to advancing climate justice. But principles and practices almost always travel well and can serve as inspiration. There are significant cultural, political, and societal differences between places that may limit their relevance. We realize that not all ideas will translate directly from one place to another. If you are struggling with a problem in your community, why would you limit potential solutions to only those created in your own state or country? Should we deny kindergarten to our children because it originated in Germany, or neglect our oral care because the toothbrush was invented in China? Of course not. The reality is that good ideas should have no borders. the system and rules that govern who decides what knowledge is and isn’t shared and with whom).īelow are three primary reasons for looking beyond our borders, with some illustrative examples from just a few of our upcoming essayists. It will lift up perspectives and voices from countries and cultures that have historically been marginalized in our current health and science knowledge system (i.e. ![]() This series will explore not only promising solutions but also the barriers to global learning that keep us from looking beyond our shores more often. It is imperative that we learn from them as quickly as possible. From Australia to Rwanda, from Bogota to New Zealand, and from Sweden to South Africa, we see communities that have made progress in tackling the same kinds of problems that communities in the United States and other nations are struggling with. ![]() Both problems and solutions are inequitably distributed.īeyond Borders is an essay series featuring ideas from around the world that can inspire and inform efforts to create better health and well-being in your community. Yet we know, as studies have confirmed, that some communities and countries are making greater progress in addressing them than others. Too many global health crises, rooted in inequity, play out in silos or isolation across every continent. Unequal health outcomes are sadly not unique to the United States. Community health workers represent perhaps the most impactful example: A concept that originated in Chinese barefoot doctors is now a core element of most health systems around the globe. With over 20 years of experience working on global health, and now as the person who directs global learning strategies for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF), the largest health and health care foundation in the United States, I’ve seen directly how ideas developed in one place can improve health in another. ![]() As a multiracial person-and as an anthropologist by training-I intentionally cross boundaries in every aspect of my life, from household decor to food to my own values. Given the myriad of interconnected problems the world is facing, it’s a number that should be troubling to anyone.īut this is particularly unnerving to me. Consider this: A 2023 survey conducted by Candid amongst people working in philanthropy found that 66 percent of US funders’ grantmaking is not informed or inspired by global ideas. ![]()
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