The course was offered through Brown’s Global Experiential Learning and Teaching (GELT) program, which provides grants of up to $36,000 to support travel, accommodations and related costs for two faculty or staff members and up to 12 Brown students to participate in an international study experience. The program offers students an opportunity for a travel-based academic experience in addition to, or in lieu of, a semester abroad.

Led by Associate Vice President for Campus Life and Executive Director of Health and Wellness Dr. Vanessa Britto and Associate Professor of Surgery Dr. Carla Moreira — who are both Cabo Verdean — the month long class investigated the history, culture and health and wellness practices of Cabo Verde and its diasporic immigrants. After local study in Providence and a nine-day trip to Cabo Verde that included visits to hospitals, medical centers and the University of Cabo Verde, the students completed a culminating project that offered solutions to issues related to social, cultural and historical determinants of health. 

“We were vulnerable together, we learned together, we laughed together, and there were a few tears that were shed,” said Britto, who also serves as an assistant professor of medicine and clinician educator at Brown. “I hope it’s one of those experiences that they will hold on to for the rest of their lives.”

That was certainly the case for Brown senior Akshay Malhotra, who was instrumental in making the class a reality. 

During his sophomore year, the ethnic studies and Portuguese and Brazilian studies double-concentrator volunteered his language skills at the Cape Verdean American Community Development Center in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, where he conducted health interviews in Portuguese as part of a research project undertaken by a student at the School of Public Health. 

That experience helped sow the seeds of what would become the diasporic healthcare GELT course. Over the next two years, Malhotra partnered with advisers from the GELT program to expand his research, collaborating with students, staff and faculty to create a curriculum and course proposal, ultimately co-leading the course as a teaching assistant and on-site coordinator.

“This whole experience has been one of the greatest privileges of my academic career at Brown,” Malhotra said. “It’s one thing to have it all planned out on paper, but completely different to actually execute it.” 

Blending local history with global health

After a hybrid learning module that offered context on the history of Cabo Verde and its diaspora, students met on a blustery January morning to participate in a walking tour that Malhotra designed through Providence’s Fox Point neighborhood, which thrived in the mid-20^th century as the city’s largest community of Cabo Verdeans. 

Joining them was Brown Vice President of Dining Programs George Barboza, who led the students past his childhood home in Fox Point. He shared memories, like the smell of freshly baked bread wafting in from the brick house across the street, and reflected on how the area has changed over the decades, providing insight into the community’s history and the impact of displacement. Later that day, the class visited the Cabo Verdean Museum in Pawtucket.

“By the time students arrived in Cabo Verde, they were completely immersed,” Britto said. “They understood what they were seeing, they understood who they were talking with, they understood the context, and it all made sense.” 

Their Cabo Verde itinerary was extensive. In just nine days, the group toured museums, cultural centers and the country’s only UNESCO World Heritage Site, historically a marketplace for the transatlantic slave trade. They visited the main public hospital of the capital city, Praia; a private multidisciplinary health clinic; a local community health post; a pharmaceutical manufacturing company ; and the University of Cabo Verde, where they connected with their Cabo Verdean contemporaries.

“Students are students everywhere,” Britto said. “Watching them reach across the language and cultural divide and just be young people together was outstanding.” 

The Brown students also had the opportunity to meet with representatives from the World Health Organization for West Africa; Cabo Verde’s minister of health; the U.S. ambassador to Cabo Verde, Jennifer Adams; and even the country’s president, José Maria Neves. 

Malhotra said that the experiences were meticulously designed to offer a non-extractive cultural and intellectual exchange, in which the students and the Cabo Verdean communities mutually benefit. 

“Modern medicine in the U.S. is incredible, but there are so many things we can learn from Cabo Verde when it comes to health and wellness,” he said. 

In their culminating projects, students in the course applied what they learned in an effort to help ameliorate public health issues in the Cabo Verdean American community. They offered solutions ranging from integrating more Cabo Verdean Kriolo  interpreters into professional health settings, studying the role of neighbors in a community health care context and working to better understand how mental health treatment is perceived within the diasporic community. 

“I’m such a hands-on learner, and I feel like this trip really brought to life all the concepts we had been discussing,” said Maya Yonas, a junior concentrating in health and human biology with a focus in global health. “It was very powerful and motivated me to want to go deeper into this field.”

The personal connection was especially strong for Pawtucket native Maison Teixeira. The Brown junior, who is pursuing concentrations in visual art and literary arts, said he applied for the class in part to learn about and visit his ancestral homeland for the first time. 

“My granddad, who was from Brava, passed away when I was little, and although I have very fond, vivid memories of him, I was never able to learn the Cabo Verdean culture or language,” Teixeira said. “I really wanted to connect with my roots and understand this part of myself I didn’t really have any knowledge of.” 

During the trip, Teixeira became acquainted with someone who had known his grandfather, and his favorite moment was meeting someone who his grandfather looked up to as a hero: Pedro Pires, the first prime minister of Cabo Verde, who helped lead the country to independence from Portuguese rule. 

“As I was meeting him, I couldn’t help but think about how proud my granddad would be,” Teixeira said.