Cornell Health International (CHI) is a student organization at Cornell University that raises awareness about global health issues through service efforts on a local scale.
This has included volunteering at Bridges Cornell Heights, a local assisted living facility, where CHI members came up with activity ideas and arts and crafts that would brighten the days of residents. During the Covid-19 pandemic, our members volunteered with the National Alliance on Mental Illness Finger Lakes (NAMI-FL) to help facilitate monthly online Family Forums.
CHI has also facilitated Zoom discussions about mental health with local Ithaca community leaders, and moderated panel discussions with special guests. CHI members recently took part in the Cancer Resource Center of the Finger Lakes 2021 Walkathon, and are currently conducting weekly virtual visits with residents of the Beechtree Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing.
We sponsored Student Mental Health Awareness Week in November to engage the Cornell community on a topic of great importance to students. The program included a panel discussion featuring Sharon McMullen, Cornell’s assistant vice president of Student & Campus Life for Health and Wellbeing. She reviewed efforts being made by the Executive Accountability Committee to push forward recommendations from the university’s Mental Health Review in 2020. McMullen was joined on the panel by Catherine Thrasher-Carroll, Mental Health Promotion Program Director at the Skorton Center for Health Initiatives.
In conjunction with Student Mental Health Awareness Week, CHI joined forces with The Sophie Fund to raise money for The Learning Web, an Ithaca nonprofit organization offering experiential learning, youth employment, and independent living programs to youth and young adults. We spread the word about the fundraiser through social media accounts, and created online bingo boards for individuals to play as they donated.
To cap off our awareness week program, CHI members created cards with motivational messages and left them around campus to provide encouragement to students as fall semester finals began.
To learn more about CHI, follow us on Instagram and Facebook (@chealthinternational) or email us at chealthinternational@gmail.com.
—By Jackie Cho, Jenny Long, and Anna Szombathy
Jackie Cho, a Health Care Policy major at Cornell University, is co-president of Cornell Health International
Jenny Long, a Human Biology, Health, and Society major at Cornell University, is service leader of Cornell Health International
Anna Szombathy, a Biological Sciences major at Cornell University, is co-president of Cornell Health International
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