Quake Spurs Campus Collaboration

When it was founded in October, the Student Alliance for Global Health at Harvard was a unique kind of organization—one of few that aimed to bring together student groups from different schools across the University.

“The idea of the SAGHAH network is to link global health groups and campaigns across Harvard and to provide them with a common platform to collaborate, but to otherwise support individual groups in what they do best,” said Cecil M. Haverkamp, a staff member of the School of Public Health and member of the SAGHAH board.

At the time it was formed, SAGHAH’s members could not predict that four months later, the organization—which now consists of representatives from 10 schools—would be given the opportunity to put its connections to work. SAGHAH is now in the midst of coordinating student groups on both sides of the river in a collective effort to help a country in need.

“Haiti is really on top of many students’ minds, especially those interested in global health and social justice issues,” Haverkamp said, explaining why SAGHAH is part of the “Harvard for Haiti” campaign. Whereas faculty-based organizations such as Partners In Health and Harvard Humanitarian Initiative have the resources to provide on-site medical aid, student groups in SAGHAH are seeking to develop feasible response efforts on campus.

SAGHAH’s short-term goal is to raise as much money as possible, while the long-term goal is to cement Harvard’s commitment to Haiti so that other organizations, such as PIH and HHI, can focus on their on-site response.

While SAGHAH has been instrumental in bringing student groups together, the organization also recognizes the responsibility of individuals.

“We are very supportive of [the efforts of] individuals—individual students or student organizations,” said Hummy Song ’08, a student at the Kennedy School and co-founder of SAGHAH. “We see it as our role to encourage and support these kinds of activities, in addition to helping coordinate university-wide efforts.”

Organizations within SAGHAH are already planning an upcoming joint initiative. The Harvard College Global Health Review and the Harvard College Global Health and AIDS Coalition will be holding a “dough-raiser” at Uno Chicago Grill this Friday evening, according to the Review’s Co-Editor-In-Chief, Michael T. Henderson ’11. Uno’s customers who present a coupon that will be handed out during this week will have 20 percent of their purchase donated to the “Harvard for Haiti” relief effort.

“Haiti is always talked about in global health, so we’ve heard a lot about Haiti,” Henderson said. “It’s just the realization that our actions now, even if small, really do have the chance to save lives.”

Song and Haverkamp also emphasized the need for the public to understand that aid requires a long-term investment.

“I know there are efforts to try to establish various ways to raise awareness beyond just the immediate aftermath—to keep awareness levels high in the weeks and months to come,” Song said.

One of the coordinated endeavors aimed at longevity is an upcoming benefit concert to be held on Feb. 12 in Sanders Theatre.

Song explained that prior to communicating through SAGHAH, both the Cambridge campus and the Longwood campus had organizations that were planning to hold the similar concerts on either side of the river at the same time.

“[We thought], why don’t we bring together the entirety of the Harvard campus instead?” Song said. She stressed that though it was acceptable for both these campuses to do the same thing, it was also important that they were aware of what others were doing in order to combine their efforts.

—Staff writer Xi Yu can be reached at xyu@college.harvard.edu.