The service-learning opportunity available to our public health students in Las Mercedes, Ecuador is a first-time interdisciplinary collaboration between our school, the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine’s graduate public health students, UM College of Engineering students and The Las Mercedes Project, a grassroots non-governmental organization that aims to improve health care in Latin America. Under the supervision of our faculty, these student teams join forces to develop, implement and evaluate sustainable population-level health improvement initiatives for the real-world town of Huaquillas, a small marginalized fishing village in Ecuador. The projects are designed to teach the students leadership skills through civic engagement and practical application of their academic knowledge in public health.
