Nearly five years ago,
University
of
Michigan
faculty and students and
the Grace Girls’ Home in
Trincomalee,
Sri
Lanka
teamed up to tackle diabetes
care in low and middle-
income communities. Now,
organizers reflect on the
new mentorship programs
taking place within the
initiative.
Grace Girls’ Home is a
shelter for “at-risk” girls
and the elderly displaced
by the 2004 tsunami in
Sri Lanka that claimed
40,000 lives, as well as
the Sri Lankan civil war
that ended in 2019, which
resulted
in
more
than
100,000 deaths. The shelter
provides
residents
with
housing, food, education
and medical treatment as
necessary.
Dr. Naresh Gunaratnam,
a
gastroenterologist
at
Huron
Gastro
in
Ann
Arbor, founded Grace Girls’
Home in 2002, intending to
address the needs of girls.
In 2004, he started an
elder care facility to house
elderly people who had no
children left to take care of
them.
“There’s
no
place
to
discharge them, so they
would literally give them
a mat and sleep on the
grounds of the hospital,
and the hospital would do
their best to feed them,”
Gunaratnam
said.
“You
start accumulating a lot of
these elders who had no
place to go … At our best in
2004-2005, we were taking
care of 300 people.”
Grace Girls’ Home also
provides
residents
with
vocational
training
and
skills
after
they
leave
the home. Sahr Yazdani,
University
alum
and
medical student at Loyola
University
Chicago,
started helping out at Grace
Girls’ Home when she was
13 by tutoring the girls
in
conversational
skills.
Yadzani said this helped
her realize the importance
of the girls’ transitions
from home.
“I
realized
there
wasn’t really a transitory
environment for these girls
living in the orphanage
to living in Sri Lankan
society,” Yazdani said. “We
renovated these complexes
that were existing on the
Grace Girls’ home property
… and wanted the girls who
were older to live in this
transitionary environment.
We taught them financial
literacy and how to go into
the market and everything
… just to introduce those
ideas in conversation and
such.”
LSA senior Nikita Bazaj
is the president of Grace-
Edu, an organization on
campus that focuses on
introducing these life skills
to the girls at Grace Girls’
Home.
“We’re
doing
a
mentorship program with
students at U-M and the
Grace Girls who are in high
school,” Bazaj said. “We’re
putting
two
U-M
girls
with one girl from Grace,
and the fall semester was
focused
on
building
a
relationship with the girls
and this next semester will
be focused on teaching
the girls individual team
topics. We have a different
team topic per month and
for
example,
this
first
month’s is finance.”
In addition to learning
life
skills,
University
fellow
Anjan
Saha
has
helped implement a recent
program to offer the girls
at Grace Girls’ Home new
employment opportunities
as
community
health
workers.
Saha
said
ancillary
care
providers
aren’t always as trusted as
physicians in Sri Lanka.
“A
lot
of
trust
is
concentrated
with
the
physician,”
Saha
said.
“Ancillary care providers
don’t necessarily receive
that same level of trust.
That’s obviously a very
big
component
of
our
healthcare
system
and
it allows the system as a
whole to offload some of
the workload that would
otherwise
fall
under
the responsibility of the
physician.”
Grace
Girls’
Home
has also partnered with
the
William
Davidson
Institute
in
the
Ross
School of Business, a non-
profit organization aimed
at improving the delivery
of
care
in
developing
countries.
Gunaratnam
said
together,
they
will
improve
physician
efficiency in Sri Lanka.
“When we can’t create
more physicians, we have to
make them more efficient,”
Gunaratnam
said.
“The
physician’s role is to deal
with the people who are
at most risk for dying …
We are saying instead of
90
seconds,
give
those
patients five minutes.”
In August 2018, Medical
student Monica Choo went
to Sri Lanka to help set up
a study examining how
effective the community
health
workers
are
at
providing health care and
patient satisfaction.
Choo
also
created
a
curriculum to train the
community health workers
in doing their job safely
and efficiently.
“I also created a one-year
curriculum to train them,”
Choo said. “Ultimately, we
want it to be a thing where
the girls can be accredited
nationally and hired by the
physicians
and
actually
make a living. To do that,
we have to have a real
curriculum like any job. I
took some time to create
a
one-year
curriculum
and we’re in conversation
with US Aid right now to
see how we can get that
leverage and get it pushed
through the Ministry of
Health.”
Saha
said
community
health
workers
help
alleviate congestion faced
in
the
health
system
and
implementing
new
vocational skills for those
who cannot seek higher
education.
“As
more
and
more
patients
started
seeing
them
and
experiencing
what it is they had to
offer, trust was sort of
built over time,” Saha said.
“Since then, the operation
has seen maybe 400-500
patients in a number of
provincial hospitals within
the Eastern province.”
Gunaratnam
said
the
future implications of the
government’s support in
this
new
vocation
will
significantly
improve
patient outcomes.
“The government will
hopefully
support
us
creating this new job and
get these girls paid and so
forth,” Gunaratnam said.
“We believe (in) focused
intervention, that means
engaging with the girls
leads to better outcomes …
The patients like talking to
the girls. They give them
more
time,
they
know
them personally, there is a
higher level of sympathy.
When I visited, they said,
‘They give us good advice
about the practical things.
The doctor doesn’t have
time to do that.’”
2— Tuesday, January 14, 2020
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
News
ALEXIS RANKIN/Daily
Miranda Lynch, LSA senior double majoring in Spanish and Program in the Environment, works in the clinic at the Human Society of Huron Valley.
TUESDAY:
By Design
THURSDAY:
Twitter Talk
FRIDAY:
Behind the Story
WEDNESDAY:
This Week in History
MONDAY:
Looking at the Numbers
Faculty, students reflect on initiative
providing healthcare in Sri Lanka
‘U’ launches mentorship program for those impacted by civil war, tsunami
SAINI KETHIREDDY
Daily Staff Reporter
DESIGN BY MICHELLE FAN
The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is published Monday through Friday during
the fall and winter terms by students at the University OF Michigan. One copy is
available free of charge to all readers. Additional copies may be picked up at the
Daily’s office for $2. Subscriptions for September-April are $250 and year long
subscriptions are $275. University affiliates are subject to a reduced subscription
rate. On-campus subscriptions for fall term are $35. Subscriptions must be prepaid.
ERIN WHITE
Managing Editor
ekwhite@michigandaily.com
SAYALI AMIN and LEAH GRAHAM
Managing News Editors news@michigandaily.com
Senior News Editors: Barbara Collins, Claire Hao, Alex Harring, Ben Rosenfeld,
Emma Stein, Liat Weinstein
EMILY CONSIDINE and MILES STEPHENSON
Editorial Page Editors tothedaily@michigandaily.com
Senior Opinion Editors: Alanna Berger, Brittany Bowman, Zack Blumberg,
Timothy Spurlin, Joel Weiner
JOHN DECKER and JULIANNA MORANO
Managing Arts Editors
arts@michigandaily.com
ALLISON ENGKVIST and ANNIE KLUSENDORF
Managing Photo Editors photo@michigandaily.com
MAGDALENA MIHAYLOVA
Statement Editor statement@michigandaily.com
Deputy Editors: Emily Stillman, Marisa Wright
MADISON GAGNE and SADIA JIBAN
Managing Copy Editors copydesk@michigandaily.com
Senior Copy Editors: Olivia Bradish, Sophie Kephart, Silas Lee, Olivia Sedlacek,
Ellie Scott
TIM CHO and SIMRAN PUJJI
Managing Online Editors
webteam@michigandaily.com
Senior Web Developers: Parth Dhyani, Abha Panda, Rohan Prashant, Jonathan
Liu
ALEC COHEN and ELI SIDER
Managing Video Editor video@michigandaily.com
Senior Michigan in Color Editors: Zoha Bharwani, Lora Faraj, Ayomide
Okunade, Gabrijela Skoko
Assistant Michigan in Color Editors: Cheryn Hong, Anamkia Kannan, Vaishali
Nambiar, Sean Tran, Angela Zhang
Senior Sports Editors: Aria Gerson, Bailey Johnson, Ben Katz, Jacob Kopnick,
Anna Marcus, Rian Ratnavale
Assistant Sports Editors: Connor Brennan, Lily Friedman, Lane Kizziah,
Brendan Roose, Kent Schwartz, Molly Shea
Senior Video Editors: Ryan O’Connor, Joseph Sim
Senior Social Media Editors: Jessie Norris, Mya Steir, Kristina Zheng
Stanford Lipsey Student Publications Building
420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1327
www.michigandaily.com
ARTS SECTION
arts@michigandaily.com
SPORTS SECTION
sports@michigandaily.com
ADVERTISING
dailydisplay@gmail.com
NEWS TIPS
news@michigandaily.com
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
tothedaily@michigandaily.com
EDITORIAL PAGE
opinion@michigandaily.com
ELIZABETH LAWRENCE
Editor in Chief
734-418-4115 ext. 1251
esla@michigandaily.com
PHOTOGRAPHY SECTION
photo@michigandaily.com
NEWSROOM
734-418-4115 opt. 3
CORRECTIONS
corrections@michigandaily.com
THEO MACKIE and ETHAN SEARS
Managing Sports Editors sportseditors@michigandaily.com
Senior Arts Editors: Jo Chang, Elise Godfryd, Zoe Phillips, Jonah Mendelson,
Ally Owens
Arts Beat Editors: Samantha Cantie, Dana Pierangeli, Andrew Pluta, Cassandra
Mansuetti, Anish Tamhaney, Sophia Yoon
SHERRY CHEN and CHRISTINE JEGARL
Managing Design Editors
design@michigandaily.com
Senior Design Editor: Lizzy Rueppel
MAYA MOKH and ANA MARIA SANCHEZ CASTILLO
Michigan in Color Editors michiganincolor@michigandaily.com
JACK GRIEVE and BEN KORN
Managing Social Media Editors
Editorial Staff
Business Staff
RYAN KELLY
Sales Manager
Senior Photo Editors: Keemya Esmael, Asha Lewis, Miles Macklin
Assistant Photo Editors: Olivia Cell, Ryan Little, Emma Mati, Alexandria
Pompei, Alexis Rankin
MOLLY WU
Creative Director
SAMANTHA SMALL and SONYA VOGEL
Managing Podcast Editors
ANITA MICHAUD
Business Manager
734-418-4115 ext. 1241
ammichau@michigandaily.com