Since the beginning of the initiative, 758 students from more than 10 faculties participated in GH courses (Table 1).
Table 1
Participants to GH academic courses from 2008 to 2018
Degree Course | TOTAL | Male | Female |
Social service | 259 | 14 | 245 |
Medicine | 230 | 69 | 161 |
Rehabilitation Sciences | 110 | 23 | 87 |
Nursing | 101 | 25 | 76 |
Obstetrics | 37 | 1 | 36 |
Psychology | 13 | 1 | 12 |
Others | 8 | 0 | 8 |
Total | 758 | 133 (17.5%) | 625 (82.4%) |
Of the total of 758 students who took part to the GH courses, it was possible to recover and use a total of 433 e-mail addresses.
Fifty-five students took part in GH gyms, two of whom took part in two different gyms. It was possible to recover all the e-mail addresses of GH gym participants (Table 2).
Table 2: Participants to GH gyms from 2012 to 2017
Project
|
TOTAL
|
“Know the reality of asylum seekers and refugees”
|
34
|
“On the tracks of the right to health”
|
10
|
“Health in prison”
|
13
|
Total
|
57*
|
* 2 students took part to two different GH Gyms
The authors received 105 answers in total (21.5% of the total 488 e-mails sent) and a descriptive analysis of the champion is described in Table 3
Table 3
Demographic characteristics of survey participants
SEX |
Male | 26 | 24.8% |
Female | 79 | 75.2% |
AGE |
21–25 | 18 | 17.1% |
26–30 | 45 | 42.9% |
31–35 | 22 | 21.0% |
36–40 | 8 | 7.6% |
41–45 | 4 | 3.8% |
46–50 | 6 | 5.7% |
51+ | 2 | 1.9% |
DEGREE COURSES |
Medicine | 43 | 40.9% |
Social Service | 19 | 18.1% |
Rehabilitation Sciences | 17 | 16.2% |
Nursing | 15 | 14.3% |
Obstetrics | 4 | 3.8% |
Psychology | 3 | 2.9% |
Others | 4 | 3.8% |
Among the 105 participants to the survey, 79 took part only in GH courses (18.2% of the participants to GH courses reached through e-mail), and 26 in GH gyms (47.3% of the participants to GH Gyms reached through e-mail).
Analysis of the results of the questions that investigate the long-term impact of the experience clearly showed that students who took part in a GH gym were more influenced by this experience for their future life. The percentage of GH gym participants who selected a high value to express the influence of the experiences on their academic, personal and professional choices (Fig. 1) and on their overall social responsibility (Fig. 2) is greater than the percentage for GH course participants.
As concerns GH courses, it is interesting to note that the most appreciated teaching method was witnesses/testimonies, which was mentioned by 73/104 people. The most appreciated topics were social determinants of health, migration and health, health in prison, housing as social determinants of health, the experience of Bastogi, a suburb of Rome.
GH gyms students reported being most impressed by the opportunity to enter in contact with a “reality that I felt far away from me”, the opportunity to “go out from classrooms and learn in real life a different concept of health”, the opportunity to enter in relationship with migrants and prisoners and to discover their underlying humanity. The importance of group work in orienting education towards a global vision was also mentioned.
Excerpts of some particularly significant experiences are detailed below.
Dialogues with asylum seekers and refugees allowed me to wide my knowledges and to know their stories and their future projects.
It was a unique experience. It is difficult to explain it in few words.
I was impressed mostly by the meeting with migrants and the interaction between different social and health professionals.
It is difficult to describe the experience in prison in few words. What impressed me the most was to see how in some places, characteristics or roles of a person became more important than the fact that he or she is a human being.
I was mostly impressed by the interaction with refugees, their life-stories and the tale of their travel/ migration process.
I was impressed by the strength of the initiative, the group work which oriented my education towards a global vision.
I was impressed by the direct and personal relationship with people, as refugees or prisoners, beyond the theorical and scientific aspect of the course. The relationship was a strong incentive and a source of knowledge.
I was impressed by the possibility to go out from classrooms and learn in the real life a different concept of health.
I was impressed by the possibility to know a reality that I felt far away from me.
I was impressed by the possibility to know the reality of the prison and to work in this reality.
I was impressed by the situation of big social and psychological fragility of refugees, people who were already tested by a difficult past life and who often don’t see a future in front of them. This experience allowed me to enter in contact with strangers, people otherwise extraneous from my life, and often considered only as a threat. The most important thing that I received was a sense of proximity with those people, who before I perceived as distant from me. Curiously, what impressed me the most was to discover that their dialogues are not different from ours…the same dreams, fears, fragilities…It was very important for me. Before this experience, hearing Arabic in the street gave me a sense of mistrust. Now I know that behind those incomprehensible words maybe there is somebody who is discussing about what to prepare for dinner at home.
Some final overall impressions and comments from students are reported below.
Maybe it is thanks to this kind of initiatives that, even with strain/difficulty, I managed to arrive at the end of the academic course, which was drying me up.
I would like to thank you because I needed all those things and I’ve been lucky to meet you.
Those educational experiences enriched my already existing basis of awarness and political activism.
It was a very interesting course. I will always have a beautiful memory of it.
Go forward with enthusiasm and perseverance in those kinds of initiatives.
We should struggle together for the safeguarding of the common goods.