Out of their comfort zone
When Chiang was in elementary school, his family emigrated to Singapore. As a student there, Chiang was keen on international activities. He decided to return to Taiwan for his university education, enrolling in the School of Medicine at Fu Jen Catholic University. In his second year, he was selected to take part in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ International Youth Ambassadors Exchange Program. The members of his group had different professional backgrounds, but they worked together seamlessly, their strengths complementing each other.Chiang learned methods of cultural dissemination and was able to witness at first hand green energy and other technologies that supported the ethos of sustainability in different countries. “The youth ambassador program was the key that unlocked my global perspective,” Chiang says.
Fu Jen has a Tanzania-focused medical volunteer group that has been operating for many years. Each year the group recruits new members, who undergo special training throughout the school year before going to Tanzania in the summer for a month of service and study. In 2016, at the end of his third year in medical school, Chiang went to Tanzania as a member of the group. For fundraising purposes, the volunteers had to compose a written statement of what they planned to do in Tanzania. Even more important was discussing among themselves the medical assistance they could provide to Tanzanian tribal communities, as well as practicing putting on the public health education seminars they anticipated offering. “The work meetings during the planning period were quite intense.” With his experience as a youth ambassador, Chiang understood that teams such as these are much like a family. Living together, they need to support and believe in each other. Unafraid of challenges, they were able to realize their goals by working together.
Tanzania is in East Africa, and its eastern border is the Indian Ocean. Chiang describes how they flew for 20 hours, transferring planes twice, before landing at Kilimanjaro Airport, from where they drove for eight hours to reach their destination in Engaruka. The team lived in residents’ backyards, where they set up tents. “The living conditions for the local people meant that they had to generate their own electric power and fetch their own water, in which mosquito larvae were visible.” Having grown up in the age of the Internet and cell phones, he couldn’t help but add: “As you can imagine, there certainly wasn’t any Wi-Fi.” But getting through their nights with just the light of the moon and stars provided Chiang with an unforgettable experience.
Engaruka, which is ethnically Masaai, is geographically about the size of New Taipei City. But the entire district only had one doctor and two nurses. One of the goals of the group from Fu Jen was to improve the health of rural Tanzanian women and children. In this tribal community, the infant death rate remained stubbornly high, and the Fu Jen group in 2011 launched a plan to create an obstetrics ward for expectant mothers. In 2016, it had just opened for use. It puts pregnant women under the care of a doctor and nurses and allows them to get ample rest, clearing the way for smooth births. “There were two or three pregnant women at any given time in the ward when we were there, and there should be more and more in future years,” says Chiang, full of hope.