Global Health Leaders Conference

We just had our first weekend of virtual student presentations from the Global Health Leaders Conference at Johns Hopkins University.

We've heard about Polio, Alzheimer's, period poverty, and yes, I spoke about global health advocacy with phone calls to Senators. What did you expect?


One of the speakers on Sunday spoke about philanthropy
Credit: @ourworldsanimals on Instagram


This online conference has been a great experience, and I got to meet other students interested in global health. In fact, you already met Janvi Huria through her guest post on this blog, and I connected with her through this program!

At conferences like the GHLC, I love to learn from my peers and just be in awe of the amazing work they do in business, research, philanthropy, and advocacy. I also try to extend an invitation to take their work to the stage of federal-level advocacy. That's pretty much what I talk about every time I'm a presenter: how do we take the knowledge from this conference and tell Congress all about it?

"Today we donated ONE THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED (1200) MEDICAL GRADE blue masks and FIVE HUNDRED (500) face shields to Paoli hospital!"
Credit: @ourworldsanimals on Instagram

The most important part of these conferences, though, is the opportunity to connect with like-minded students from across the country, or even the world. I alluded to this in my post about the RESULTS International Conference: over the years, my sister and I have made many friends within RESULTS, even if we only see them for a few days each year.

When you meet someone really cool at a conference, exchange contact information with them! You don't have to hand over your personal phone number, but even just connecting on LinkedIn or Instagram will give you a way to reach that person later and see what cool projects they're working on.

Conferences like this one are going on throughout the year, and many are offered online at an affordable cost (some are even free of charge). I encourage you to search for organizations that work on issues you care about, and see if they are having any regional, national, or international gatherings. I don't have a master schedule of every youth summit ever, but here's just a handful of organizations I know that offer conferences open to students (even if they're not specifically student summits):

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Donating gently used eyeglasses to a mission in Haiti is just one of many global health projects presented at the GHLC
credit: Katherine Holekamp

Action steps? Check out the recordings of these presentations to learn more about global health! They will be available soon at the conference YouTube channel. 

If you were at the Use Your Outside Voice webinar in March, my speech in the Johns Hopkins series gave an update on where we are with Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and here's a new call script to our U.S. Senators:

“Hi, my name is ______ and I am a constituent. My ZIP code is ______. I am calling because as a student with an interest in global health, I am really worried about the disruption COVID-19 causes for global immunization against other diseases. Will Senator _____ urge Leadership to address the global pandemic by increasing our support for Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance in any next relief legislation? Thank you.”

Many thanks to Glohea at Johns Hopkins University for this opportunity!

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