Stephanie Lopez Reflects on Her Time Interning with WAAF

Hello, my name is Stephanie Lopez and I am a Public Health Promotion student from California and studied abroad during the Spring of 2023 at the University of Ghana in hopes of learning how treatment and prevention of illnesses differ from the U.S as well as gain experience working in the field of Public Health. I’ve always had an interest in health education, specifically in sexual and reproductive health, because during my first year at college, I realized how I was lacking in knowledge about STI’s and healthy sexual behaviors. I decided to intern at WAAF because I thought it would provide me the best experience to learn more about this topic as well as learn about the types of programs and initiatives being carried out by the clinic. During my time at WAAF, I mainly worked under Penelope Agbai and my main project was promoting healthy behaviors ranging from HIV testing to exercise as well as raising public awareness about the services that WAAF provides through the creation of social media posts and posters around the clinic. Through WAAF, I became more aware of how culture could serve as an obstacle for treatment of HIV. Stigma for HIV in general, was high and I became aware of this more as I observed how some of the social media content focused specifically on education of how HIV is contracted in order to counter misinformation and sex myths. My experience at WAAF definitely served to further my interest in public health because seeing the hard-working staff at WAAF and IHCC do their absolute best as a non-government organization helped to motivate me into wanting to be a part of an organization that helps low-income Hispanic communities that don’t have a solid sex education during their adolescence and attempt to educate students on the importance of using condoms as an STI preventative, communication between partners, and advocating for their health.