Alumni helping out, working for health care

Ashley Hayley, Reporter

   Have you ever thought what it would be like to work in a different country, or even travel to learn? Some alumni close to home have experienced that themselves.

Former student and North Harford High School graduate, Morgan Streeter’s mother, Deborah Streeter has worked in Haiti and the Dominican Republic with the International Medical Alliance of Tennessee. “I go to Haiti and the Dominican republic every February to do a medical mission,” said Streeter.   She added that her team journey to these countries to help out and provide healthcare to people in need, especially children.

Streeter has been joining on these missions since the year 2007, since that time she has been on roughly 20 to 30 different trips to help out. “When I don’t work with that group, I also work on a project in Port au Prince, Haiti, for the Haitian dental school,” While there, she looks for tools and supplies to help improve the schooling, but with little money and no electricity it is hard for groups to do much dental work, so all her team can do is extract teeth.

The types of experiences she has had have also impacted Streeter, “If I can do something to alleviate just one person’s suffering, I feel good about it.”,  Streeter and her team helps in villages throughout these countries and help, “As many as 300 to 800 patients a day, depending on where we go.” On her team’s, many people who are there to help out help in areas like “internal medicine, women’s health, as well as child clinics, dental and vision.”

The alum and her team travel to these villages where the people have barely any access to medical facilities or necessary care they need. Streeter says, “You see people dying of treatable diseases due to lack of healthcare and simple, affordable prescription drugs. It’s horrible to see.”

Streeter adds some advice to teens looking into volunteering or getting involved in helping out, “Most teens look at volunteering in a soup kitchen as do- good kind of activity,” Volunteer opportunities can be found online as well, and if you are looking to volunteer abroad you can talk to medical or dental professionals. “My suggestion is to get out there and do something kind for someone.”