UF students take anti-tobacco message to India, blog reaches beyond

January 19, 2010

Instead of spending winter holiday break with family, five University of Florida pre-medicine majors blogged from India about their experiences with Doctors Without Borders.

Wendy Alderman, Jasmine Nebhrajani, Ami Patel, Krupa Patel and Ashley Van Putten traveled to Mota Fofalia, India, to help educate children about the dangers of tobacco use.

Each day 55,000 children in India start using tobacco and about 5 million children under the age of 15 are addicted to tobacco, according to an online article written by Dr. Pankaj Chaturvedi, an associate professor and head and neck cancer surgeon at Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai.

Ami Patel’s uncle, Kiran Patel, is one of three founders of the Mota Fofalia compound, including a hospital and the Shree Chhotubhai A. Patel Learning Institute and Academy.

PowerPoint presentations provided 150 academy students, ages 13 to 16, with vivid pictures of the harmful effects of tobacco use. Although many U.S. schools censor such pictures, the Indian school permitted them, said Wendy Alderman.

Alderman considers the effort a success, crediting the “shock value” of the pictures, as well as the interactive games and awarding of candy.

The UF students traveled several times to an Internet café to blog (gatorgirlsinindia.blogspot.com) about their experiences. Alderman said that she and the other women decided to create the blog to stay connected with their families, but the blog soon began to reach others.

“The world is becoming increasingly connected,” said UF alumnus Vivek Chandrasekhar, a manager at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Chandrasekhar found the blog after reading about it in the “InsideUF” online newsletter (http://insideuf.ufl.edu).

Chandrasekhar said he was attracted to the blog because of the time of year the women decided to engage in the cause, and because of the cultural experience for them.
Alderman recommends keeping a blog when traveling.

“You may forget the experiences you have, but if you blog about it, you can reread it and feel what you felt in that moment,” Alderman said.