Final Presentations and Goodbyes

We've come a long way since the beginning of the internship. It's a bittersweet moment for me. On the one hand, we just finished our final presentation last Friday and all that's left now is some finishing touches on the paper. After that, we're pretty much free for the last few weeks of summer! On the other hand, it'll feel really weird not meeting with the team after this week to continue researching and learning from each other and finding ways to help successfully implement an mHealth program in rural Nicaragua to address the communities' barriers to health access. 

Over the weeks, I've grown closer to the other MHIRT interns and our AMOS staff members, and I honestly don't feel completely ready to say goodbye just yet. I want to thank everyone I worked with for all the guidance and support. Our research and presentation went well only because of their never-ending help. And I'm really sad we were never able to meet in person and explore Nicaragua together. But I think we all still went through a unique, and (hopefully) once in a lifetime experience together as we worked remotely during a global pandemic. I wish all of the MHIRT interns, AMOS staff, and communities in Nicaragua happiness and success, and I'm grateful for the opportunity I had to work alongside everyone during this research!!

Below is a picture from one of our first meetings together as a team. It's a "Rio de la Vida." It was used as a team bonding exercise. If I remember correctly, we first mentioned why we wanted to participate in mHealth/Global health research, then we all spoke about the personal obstacles that we've faced, and finally, at the end of the river, we talked about what our goals were and what we hoped to get out of the work did together.

Thank you all again for the support and guidance. I hope we'll get to work together again in the future! Goodbye :)