Our Mission, Vision & Founding Story

This is the story of how a small group of students, working alongside grassroots health leaders, forged a model that is transforming the role of undergraduates in global health.

In 2006, a group of Northwestern undergraduates were brought together by their common determination to answer one question: How can we, as students, engage in global health in a way that makes a lasting impact?

Frustrated by the short-term options offered to them – donating money to humanitarian organizations, participating in medical mission trips, studying abroad – they set out to design a new solution. This model, they committed, would put community leaders and experts at the center, and unlock the passion, resources, and creativity of their generation to help build a healthier world for all.

These students knew that there were grassroots leaders on every continent who were already working to improve the health of their own communities. From Rwandan medical school students rebuilding clinics destroyed by the genocide to Nicaraguan community health workers bringing clean water to their rural villages, these leaders worked day in and day out on the frontlines of health and social justice.

Born and raised in the communities they served, these local leaders had the knowledge, relationships, and vision needed to create lasting change. However, traditional top-down global health structures often left these community experts and their initiatives without necessary resources – funding, technology, research, global recognition – to fully realize their impact goals.

It was clear that students and grassroots leaders each held a crucial piece of the puzzle.

In the spring of 2007, GlobeMed leaders at Northwestern brought together 45 students from seven universities to learn and brainstorm together at the first GlobeMed Global Health Summit. Crowded around a blackboard with minds collaborating and ideas flying, they forged the GlobeMed partnership model, born from the need for sustainable, authentic, and relationship-driven efforts in global health.

Today, 1,000 students across 36 university-based chapters use the GlobeMed model sustain one-to-one, long-term partnerships with grassroots organizations in communities across Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Through these partnerships, we are building a global network of human connection and impact.

Though we’ve evolved in scope and approach since our founding, we continue to be guided by our community’s curiosity and fierce commitment to a world where health is possible for all people.