Suhani Pawar is an undergraduate student double-majoring in Global Health and Political Science. She is interested in the policy and advocacy side of global health, hence the double-major. She is from Southern California, and has an interest in women's health and advocacy for issues such as reproductive rights. When she completed her field experience, she had just finished my first year at UCSD.
This organization provided education and resources to different parts of the community, including those impacted by memory loss illnesses such as Alzheimer's, caregivers, senior centers, and the general public. They table at different community events to spread awareness and answer questions, host talks to provide education, and provide memory care consultations, among other things.
Suhani was an Outreach and Advocacy intern. As such, she drove to different parts of the county to help with tabling events at civic centers, city spaces, and libraries. She also attended and researched for expert talks. She also directly connected with patients and families when staffing adapted interfaith religious services. In addition, she did independent outreach to senior living facilities to add them into the network of the centers that Alzheimer's Orange County provided services to. She was trained about dementia, Alzheimer's, and related memory care illnesses. She was trained how to speak with caregivers, those with memory loss illnesses, and community members during events. She worked under Kristen Maahs-Kolberg, a supervisor on the outreach team.
During her field experience, she was faced with challenges since the population that she was working with was a group of individuals that she generally did not have much interaction with. She had limited experience with those with illnesses such as Alzheimer's, and she had to work throughout the duration of her experience to gain skills to talk to these individuals.
"I learned a great deal of lessons for doing outreach and socialization. In a way, the experience developed my skills in sales and outreach, because a great deal of my job was visiting different memory facilities, churches, and senior facilities to 'pitch' Alzheimer's Orange County. These were not skills that I possessed before. I was also able to gain a mentor in Kristen, my supervisor. She was open about her background and invited me to ask questions and focus on events that were more policy-based, which was what I told her my main interest was. I learned lessons about grief from the support groups that Alzheimer's Orange County would facilitate for individuals who had loss family members to memory care illnesses."
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