Wartburg public health class helps Cedar Valley nonprofit create PSAs for clients

Waverly, IA (01/03/2024) — In December, several Wartburg College students teamed up with the World Grace Project to help create public service announcement videos for the nonprofit's YouTube channel.

The Waterloo nonprofit works with refugee and immigrant populations to help them become self-sufficient in their new homes. Annie Vander Werff, an adjunct public health professor at Wartburg, recently served the nonprofit as a health equity outreach coordinator through the AmeriCorps VISTA program. Students in Vander Werff's introductory public health class were tasked with researching a public health topic provided by the nonprofit, writing a script about the topic and recording the audio.

"It's important for students to have a worldly mind while they are learning so they can see how their work in the class can be applied in the world," Vander Werff said. "There is a lot of value in learning about a public health topic and then disseminating what is learned."

World Grace Project will translate the videos into several languages to ensure their clients have access to the information. Vander Werff worked on a similar project during her undergraduate days that saw tremendous results.

"We partnered with Iowa Public Radio and language specialists at the University of Northern Iowa to record PSAs about cancer detection in four languages," Vander Werff said. "They were played in Postville, and we later learned of a woman who heard the announcements and was able to get the care she needed because of them."

The Wartburg students' videos centered on topics like winter blues, winter weather preparedness, water safety and tuberculosis, among other things.

A seatbelt and car seat safety video created by seniors Delaney Sorem and Jordan Swiatkowski already has been translated into Haitian Creole on the World Grace Project's YouTube page.

Sorem, who is majoring in psychology and sociology, hopes to become a human resources professional, while Swiatkowski will enroll in medical school.

"It's important for doctors, and people in general, to understand how public health works and how to communicate with people, which we have talked about a lot in this class," Swiatkowski said. "It's easy to ramble on about things you know, but it's important to take into consideration a lot of different perspectives because people have varying education levels and experiences."

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