There are only a few days left in 2009. It has been a challenging year, both for nonprofit organizations and the communities they seek to serve.

But as the year draws to a close, our overarching sentiment here at ASF isn’t one of futility or frustration. It’s one of awe.

Awe at the commitment and dedication of this year’s Schweitzer Fellows, who are impacting the health outcomes of society’s most vulnerable members through innovative service projects like this and this.

Awe at the strength of community members like Rosemary, who remain vibrant and optimistic in the face of individual and systemic challenges.

Awe at the generosity of the mentors — both from academia, and from community-based organizations — who provide invaluable guidance to Schweitzer Fellows as they carry out their service projects.

Awe at the Schweitzer Fellows for Life network’s collective power, and individual achievements.

Awe at the dedication of the Schweitzer Program Directors, who have found their own Lambarenes by helping others do the same.

And finally, awe at the breathtaking generosity of the funders, sponsors, and partners who make all of the above possible.

From all of us at ASF, thank you, and warm wishes for a peaceful holiday season.

Beyond Boulders will be on break until Wednesday, Dec. 30.

Today’s roundup of news stories related to health disparities, health care, health issues, direct service, social justice, animal welfare, environmentalism… basically, all things Schweitzer:

• Early this morning, the U.S. Senate voted to end debate over proposed health care reform legislation; the legislation is expected to be put to a final Senate vote on Christmas Eve (BBC News)
• Health Affairs‘ Timothy Jost offers a two-part analysis of the Senate health care reform bill (Health Affairs)
• In an effort to address and reduce health disparities in LGBT populations, The Center for American Progress calls on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to establish an Office of LGBT Health (Center for American Progress)
• According to new CDC estimates, nearly one percent of children in the U.S. suffer from autism, “with boys at least four times more likely than girls to suffer from the developmental disorder” (Boston Globe)
• Health Care for All’s “A Healthy Blog” points out a sobering New York Times article illustrating that many  “youth correctional facilities are dramatically unsuited to address mental health needs of inmates” (A Healthy Blog, New York Times)
• Boston researchers have developed an online tool that helps to predict stroke recurrence in high-risk patients  (White Coat Notes)

We’ve written before about Kate B. Reynolds Schweitzer Fellow Alex Stovall — the first Schweitzer Fellow from Winston-Salem State University (WSSU).

Like Albert Schweitzer, Stovall made a dramatic mid-career decision to dedicate himself to serving others. His unique path to becoming a Schweitzer Fellow; his dedication to making physical therapy available to low-income Winston-Salem residents; and his commitment to building bridges between his school and the community have resulted in dramatic impact.

In fact, WSSU — which featured Stovall as one of three standout students from its fall graduating class — writes that:

Because of Stovall, nearly 400 low-income east Winston-Salem residents have received free physical therapy treatment, with an estimated value of nearly $50,000.

As his Schweitzer project, Stovall established a physical therapy clinic that serves un- and underinsured community members who may have received primary care for their injuries, but still risk decline and debilitation without physical therapy:

“For me, the greatest satisfaction from this year has been that Winston-Salem State University is giving back to the community, and that means we are also establishing relationships and connections,” said Stovall, who is classified as a non-traditional student, having left a management position with a major company to move into a new profession.

In addition to his volunteer efforts with the clinic, Stovall also served as host for a regional Schweitzer Fellows Symposium held on the WSSU campus in November. All of this activity was in addition to his classes and the clinical rotations he had to complete for graduation.

Here’s to Stovall — who, as WSSU’s press release notes, graduates today — for making his life his argument.

Tufts-Schweitzer Fellow Taiwo Oshodi has developed a nutrition education program for Boston residents living with HIV/AIDS.

This holiday season, TheBostonChannel.com is featuring inspiring stories of health and hope from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC).

BIDMC is ASF’s host institution, as well as the official sister hospital of the Schweitzer hospital in Lambarene, Africa. It’s also where current (and very busy) Tufts-Schweitzer Fellow Taiwo Oshodi works as an ER tech — that is, when she’s not studying for her master’s in biomedical science at Tufts University, and completing her 200-hour Schweitzer service project (a nutrition education program for Boston residents living with HIV/AIDS).

In TheBostonChannel’s feature, Oshodi discusses her deep commitment to Boston’s HIV-positive community — and the ways  her Schweitzer project addresses its needs:

Oshodi’s Schweitzer project consists of a series of hands-on cooking classes specifically tailored to the health needs of Boston’s HIV-positive population, emphasizing everything from nutritional plans that address secondary ailments (like diabetes) to effectively navigating grocery stores.
“The class members’ response has been incredibly fulfilling,” Oshodi says. “Sometimes it’s hard to get BLC members to come out for programs—but we already have a waiting list for the next class cycle, which starts in January.”

When it comes to juggling her various responsibilities, this student/Schweitzer Fellow/ER tech is working to make “service” their common thread:

“Exams are important, but it’s being out there, working hand in hand with the community you seek to serve, that reminds you why,” she says.

Over the past 13 years, the Chicago Area Schweitzer Fellows Program has supported more than 350 service projects throughout Chicago and DuPage County — equaling over 70,000 hours of service to communities in need.

Yesterday, they posted a video providing an up-close glimpse of one of those Schweitzer service projects: 2009-10 Fellow Sara VanKoningsveld’s therapeutic movement and exercise-based program for homeless women in the Chicago area.

VanKoningsveld, a Dance/Movement Therapy and Counseling student at Columbia College Chicago, wanted to bring the therapeutic benefits of dance to Chicago women who are experiencing homelessness. So for her Schweitzer project, VanKoningsveld partnered with Rebecca Johnson Apartments, part of the Deborah’s Place organization.

“They’re experiencing homelessness for various reasons, whether it’s poverty, loss of employment, they’re displaced from their home because of domestic abuse,” VanKoningsveld says. “Through dance movement therapy, the women are offered an opportunity to not only be physically active, but also to express different emotions and feelings, and possibly to build a stronger community here, as well as feel more empowered as individuals.”

Watch the video by clicking the screenshot below. All of the featured women are remarkable, but we’re especially taken with with Rosemary at 3:08!

“Anyone can rescue his human life, in spite of his professional life, who seizes every opportunity of being a man by means of personal action, however unpretending, for the good of fellow men who need the help of a fellow man. Such a man enlists in the service of the spiritual and good. No fate can prevent a man from giving to others this direct human service side by side with his lifework. If so much of such service remains unrealized, it is because the opportunities are missed.” — Dr. Albert Schweitzer

The announcement of President Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize caused a firestorm of controversy—not just in media circles, but also on this blog.

Obama addressed that controversy this morning from Oslo as he delivered his Nobel Address – and simultaneously hailed previous Nobel Laureate Dr. Albert Schweitzer as a “giant of history”:

“Compared to some of the giants of history who have received this prize — Schweitzer and King; Marshall and Mandela — my accomplishments are slight.”

Physician-humanitarian Schweitzer, an ardent advocate for nuclear abolition in the last decades of his life, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952. In his Nobel Address, entitled “The Problem of Peace,” Schweitzer said, “Only when an ideal of peace is born in the minds of the peoples will the institutions set up to maintain this peace effectively fulfill the function expected of them.”

Supported by The Albert Schweitzer Fellowship, hundreds of graduate students across the US are heeding Schweitzer’s words, each seeking, in his or her own way, to bring “an ideal of peace” to underserved communities.

As Obama said this morning,

…A just peace includes not only civil and political rights — it must encompass economic security and opportunity. For true peace is not just freedom from fear, but freedom from want.

It is undoubtedly true that development rarely takes root without security; it is also true that security does not exist where human beings do not have access to enough food, or clean water, or the medicine they need to survive. It does not exist where children cannot aspire to a decent education or a job that supports a family. The absence of hope can rot a society from within.

In working to address the health disparities that continue to plague our world, Schweitzer Fellows here, in Africa, and beyond are also addressing hope disparities.  In answering Schweitzer’s call to service (whether by empowering Hispanic migrant workers to take control of their own health, establishing Los Angeles’ first micro-health clinic for post-incarcerated youth, or empowering at-risk senior citizens with the tools to combat elder abuse), these 2,000 individuals are answering Schweitzer’s call to instill “an ideal of peace.”

Please read more about them — and support them — today.

If you’ve picked up Boston Magazine’s 2009 “top doctors” issue at your local newsstand, you’ve seen the smiling faces of three Schweitzer Fellows for Life — Manasa Patna, Zirui Song, and Venis Wilder — staring back at you from its pages.

Patna, Song, and Wilder — each of whom solidified their commitment to addressing the health needs of underserved populations as Schweitzer Fellows — make up one quarter of the magazine’s 12 top “doctors in progress.”

“I’m incredibly proud of these three Schweitzer Fellows for their commitment to working with individuals and communities in need throughout their careers,” says Albert Schweitzer Fellowship President Lachlan Forrow, MD.

As a 2006-2007 Boston Schweitzer Fellow with a preexisting interest in addressing the health needs of at-risk young women, Manasa Patna worked with the Center For Young Women’s Health at Children’s Hospital Boston  to develop a comprehensive leadership  development curriculum aimed at equipping female high school students with the skills, knowledge, and motivation to conduct outreach sessions with their peers.

“The Schweitzer program serves a very valuable role in the community in allowing students to connect with community projects,” says Patna, a fourth-year student at Harvard Medical School.

Patna’s commitment to women’s health continues to shape her career path. She told Boston Magazine:

“I’m interested in working in India—I speak the language, and it’s where my family is from. As part of doing my master’s in public health, I went to work in southern India, looking at how you can reduce maternal deaths in rural areas. There’s a huge gap in women’s healthcare there, given the culture and gender biases in the system. Emergency obstetric services are scarce, facilities are poor. But at least now people are starting to look at maternal mortality as a human rights issue. No one was even thinking about the mothers’ health until recently, and today it’s beginning to be a priority.”

As a 2007-08 Schweitzer Fellow, Zirui Song collaborated with the Brookside Community Health Center in Jamaica Plain to develop a youth sports program as part of a comprehensive approach to encourage pediatric patients to adopt a healthier and more physically fit lifestyle.

“I feel it is especially important for future health care providers to engage in this kind of service during our training, as it brings a dose of reality and teaches us to think about the world in a meaningful way, not to mention giving us an opportunity to make a substantive contribution,” says Song, a Year IV MD/PhD student in Health Policy at Harvard Medical School who has contributed to Beyond Boulders in the past.

Song told Boston Magazine:

“At its core, economics is the study of human behavior, similar to psychology. So I’m using economics to study the doctor-patient relationship and physician behavior, things like how different types of doctors might respond to different types of payment systems.

I’m closely following the national healthcare reform debate, trying to understand all the intricacies. I think something will get done this year. But I also think that, just like what happened in Massachusetts, the first issue that will be addressed is access to care, and meanwhile the problem of cost control is going to be kicked down the road. We didn’t deal with that here, and now we’re in a situation where costs are skyrocketing.”

As a 2007-08 Schweitzer Fellow, Venis Wilder collaborated with the Black Ministerial Alliance of Greater Boston to create a program serving minority youth aimed at building self-esteem, promoting non-violence, and encouraging critical thinking about media portrayals of success, sexuality, and violence.

“This Fellowship opportunity … has given me an organized, formal way of maintaining my desire to serve while being in the midst of one of the most difficult years of medical school,” Wilder says.

Wilder told Boston Magazine:

“I went to college thinking I was going to be a judge. But after my freshman year, my father and I both had to go to the county hospital, and we received the worst care possible. Maybe they were overworked, but the doctors and staff made us feel we weren’t wanted. And I thought, ‘This is unacceptable.’ That’s when I started premed. I doubt I’ll end up practicing full time. I want to transform communities to be healthier, and that extends way beyond the doctor’s office.”

Patna, Song, and Wilder are just three of the 2,000 Schweitzer Fellows for Life across the country who are working to reduce health disparities in their careers as health professionals. Kudos to Boston Magazine for shining their spotlight on these three leaders in service.

Growing up in Michigan, Lisa Campion was a member of her state’s 4-H Youth Conservation Council, a program that gives teens the chance to explore environmental issues and present their findings to a state senate committee.

Campion’s 4-H membership solidified her desire to pursue a career in environmental law. And now, as a Vermont Law School Schweitzer Fellow whose efforts are being featured on the school’s website, she’s working to inspire area teens to do the same.

As her Schweitzer project, Campion has launched the Vermont 4-H Youth Environmental Council — which is dedicated to promoting youth leadership opportunities for the state’s teens, and supporting those teens in identifying, researching, and presenting their opinions on a Vermont environmental issue to the Vermont State Legislature.

Last week, thanks to Campion’s efforts, three members of the Vermont 4-H Youth Environmental Council did just that, arguing at the Vermont State House in support of H. 97:

The “no-idling” bill, which would prohibit trucks and other large vehicles from idling for more than five minutes at a time, would reduce carbon emissions and end Vermont’s dubious distinction of being the only New England state without such a law in place.

…

The three girls bolstered their presentation with a six-page report, “Vehicle Idling in Vermont,” which spelled out the impacts of needless idling and examined the difficulty of changing motorists’ behavior.

“Why do people idle?” posed 15-year-old Kathryn Tadio of Rutland County, who then proceeded to explain that most offenders are either in denial or they simply prefer the comfort of keeping the heat blasting on a cold winter day.

But the convenience comes at a price, her colleague, 17-year-old Kayla Ray said, noting that every hour of idling puts nearly 10 pounds of carbon dioxide into the air. And Anya Rose, 16, offered various ways to educate the public about the dangers of needless idling.

Two legislators, including the bill’s chief sponsor, Rep. David Sharpe, listened intently from the first row, while VLS student Lisa Campion, the girls’ coach and mentor, looked on with obvious pride.

Read Vermont Law School’s full article on Campion’s Schweitzer project here.

Our 2,000+ Schweitzer program alumni — or Fellows for Life — are now living in 46 of 50 states…

… and they’re also in space.

Several days ago, Schweitzer Fellow for Life Robert Satcher returned safely to earth on Space shuttle Atlantis, having completed a 4.5-million mile STS-129 mission to the International Space Station.

Satcher traveled to the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Africa as a 1993 Lambarene Schweitzer Fellow. Then a Harvard Medical School student, Satcher (whose uncle, former U.S. Surgeon General David Satcher, received the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism from ASF earlier this year) provided medical care to Lambarene locals.

Since then, in the words of Congressman Danny K. Davis, Satcher

has done some amazing things with his life. An orthopedic surgeon who practices at Northwestern Memorial and Children’s Memorial hospitals, teaches at Northwestern University Medical School, does research at the Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern and the Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology in Advanced Medicine at Northwestern …. he has been active in the Big Brother for Youth at Risk Counseling Program; Department of Corrections, San Francisco, California; a tutor for the Black Student Union tutorial program at MIT; the National Society of Black Engineers; the American Institute of Chemical Engineering; a supervising adult for Cub Scout Camp for Boys in Nashville, Tennessee; and he is a lay Episcopal minister with primary responsibility for visiting the sick and
shut-in members of the church at St. Edmonds Episcopal Church in Chicago and St. James Episcopal Church in Houston.

Congratulations to this lifelong leader in service on his safe return to earth — and his continued good work.