November 20, 2014

Certificate Student Focus – Lisa Shawcroft

Lisa Shawcroft,  a 2014 Global WACh Certificate Program Alum, was selected as one of 128 fellows with Global Health Corps.  She is currently a Communications Specialist for Marie Stopes International (MSI)- US in Washington DC, and is blazing a trail for future Global Health Corps fellows to be able to work with the organization in sexual and reproductive health.

During her studies at the Evans School of Public Affairs, Lisa was drawn to the conversations about health systems and hospital cases. She had taken the Global WACh Law & Policy Solutions course; which according to her, compliment her Masters in Public Administration coursework very well.  She had previously been involved with a few non-profits here in Seattle and wanted to broaden her horizons. After graduating from the UW with an MPA and certificates in Non-profit Management as well as the Global WACh Certificate, Lisa identified MSI-US as an opportunity to put her recently acquired skills into practice.

“It’s hard to put a border on health,” she says, emphasizing that everything is interconnected and that borders are fluid. Global health is truly global.  “I’m an American born, somewhat privileged woman who speaks English. If I have problems accessing the care I need–how hard must it be for someone who doesn’t have those same privileges and is coming from a total different cultural background and trying to adjust—to access care?”

Lisa’s Global WACh Certificate Capstone focused on community-based asset building with Latino children and adolescents in Federal Way.  She focused on strengths of this community as reported by these populations in an effort to better connect these populations to needed health services.

Lisa hopes to use her fellowship year with Global Health Corps and MSI-US as a stepping stone to working with refugees and immigrants to Washington state, specifically in the field of reproductive health. While researching potential Global WAch capstone projects, she struggled to identify a particular organization that tackles refugee family planning, so she says that’s what pushes her to fill that gap. For Lisa, global is local, and the Global WACh certificate helped her learn the skills necessary to work with resource scare settings—both internationally and domestically.

We here at Global WACh wish Lisa all the best and know that she’s doing some fantastic work to change people’s lives for the better.