{"id":4971,"date":"2025-08-14T14:52:55","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T19:52:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/monsoon.dev\/projects\/schweitzer\/?p=4971"},"modified":"2025-08-14T15:14:55","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T20:14:55","slug":"more-about-pamoja-health-interview-with-fellow-jasmine-perkins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/monsoon.dev\/projects\/schweitzer\/more-about-pamoja-health-interview-with-fellow-jasmine-perkins\/","title":{"rendered":"More About Pamoja Health: Interview with Fellow Jasmine Perkins"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Jasmine (right) with Ms. S (left), a FAM Houston participant she worked with to get a bus card, so she can visit places in Houston with ease.<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div>

What drew you to the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship (ASF)?<\/strong>
\nFor the Fellowship, I wanted to be involved in the service-oriented mission and values that align with the Fellowship. I was thinking about how I could further enhance and develop my leadership skills and also be able to empower communities to be the healthiest version of themselves. The Albert Schweitzer Fellowship would give me that opportunity.<\/p>\n

Why did you choose FAM Houston as your project site?<\/strong>
\nFAM Houston is a nonprofit organization that focuses on welcoming newcomers and helping them transition into the United States.\u2029They closely work with East African refugees, and I personally believe that they are often overlooked in our society. From my nursing background and just some of the things that I’ve experienced and witnessed within the healthcare system, they’re often overlooked. FAM Houston believes in achieving together; I think that that’s awesome, and that’s something that I align with. You don’t have to go through life alone and carry on the burden alone. We\u2019re supposed to be a community; community essentially means common and shared.\u2029And so one of the common and shared qualities is that we are human, right? FAM Houston as an organization depicts that very well.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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Jasmine during one of the interactive health sessions she has hosted to screen blood sugar levels.<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div>

What is the goal of your project?<\/strong>
\nThe focus of my project is to increase the number of East African refugees who use preventative health services and primary care services. What I’ve learned in this project is that when they’re coming from Africa, a lot of times they use the health care system in times when there is an issue with their health, versus the use of the health care system in order to prevent problems from occurring. That’s one thing that I’ve found that\u2019s commonly different between their health system versus being in the US.<\/p>\n

How did you approach the project and getting to know the community better?<\/strong>
\nFAM Houston has many different touch points with the community. I engage specifically with the Women’s Empowerment Group and also at the Shamba Farm of Peace on the weekends. During these times, I was able to learn about their experiences, and that’s how I came to know more about their approach to healthcare systems and what health means to them.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s been a big takeaway or impact on you from this experience so far?<\/strong>
\nI would say, and I particularly reinforced this thought last week in our monthly meeting, don’t allow your privileges to blind you. There are multiple realities. Meet people where they are. The difference between myself and them may just be a policy, a resource, or the knowledge of knowing.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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Jasmine with participants of FAM Houston's Women's Empowerment Group.<\/p><\/div><\/div><\/div>

Is there a special story you\u2019d like to share from your project?<\/strong>
\nThe one that comes to mind, recently I worked with a teen mom who has two children under two. She mentioned that she needed help with childcare assistance. I was watching the news or scrolling on social media, and I saw an ad that a childcare program was accepting applications. I mentioned it to her, and I met up with her a few weeks ago to go through the application and apply. As I was writing it down, I used the PRAPARE Tool, which is a social determinants of health screening tool. I asked her what was one thing she wanted to accomplish in the next six months, and she said, \u201cI want to graduate high school.\u201d I thought about it, and in my brain, I was like, \u201cOh, she has children, you know, she has finished school, right?\u201d It didn’t dawn on me that she had not finished. She said she wanted to go back to school, but she couldn’t because she didn’t have childcare, and she can’t get a better job to pay for childcare because she doesn’t have a high school diploma. Essentially, her words fueled me and made me realize the connection between education and health in a very basic sense. If you’re constantly worried about, \u201cHow am I gonna be able to pay the bills? Who’s gonna watch my kids?\u201d, this affects more than just health care services, but health in general. If you’re constantly under that form of stress, of wondering and not knowing, I think that then becomes an issue. I think by addressing the fundamental natures of what is health, those are the skills that I’m learning about in the Fellowship.<\/p>\n

Is there anything else that you would like to share?<\/strong>
\nI’ll say that I\u2019m very blessed to have been a recipient of this Fellowship. I think that it’s challenged me just as a person to think about what it is that I can do to better support the community. It’s given me points of reflection and how I can also bring in these new thoughts and this new knowledge that I’m learning through the Fellowship into my own nursing practice.<\/p>\n

About Jasmine:<\/strong>
\nJasmine Perkins is a 3rd year PhD Nursing student at Texas Woman’s University. Originally from Amarillo, Texas, she relocated to Dallas, Texas, to pursue her undergraduate studies. In 2014, Jasmine was accepted into Lonestar College Tomball Nursing Program. She graduated with her associate degree in applied science nursing in 2016. Immediately, she began working in acute care on the medical-surgical\/telemetry unit. She completed her Bachelor of Science in Nursing at Sam Houston State University and obtained her Health Informatics Certificate and Master’s in Nursing Education from Texas Woman’s University. Jasmine loves teaching and volunteering in the community and is passionate about wellness. She loves hugs, food, music, taking pictures, traveling, and drones. As a Fellow, she will partner with FAM Houston, a non-profit organization that builds an empowered community among refugees, immigrants, and local Houstonians. Pamoja, “Together,” they will tackle healthcare access issues and promote healthy living.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4973,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/monsoon.dev\/projects\/schweitzer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/monsoon.dev\/projects\/schweitzer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/monsoon.dev\/projects\/schweitzer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monsoon.dev\/projects\/schweitzer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monsoon.dev\/projects\/schweitzer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4971"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/monsoon.dev\/projects\/schweitzer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4971\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4979,"href":"https:\/\/monsoon.dev\/projects\/schweitzer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4971\/revisions\/4979"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monsoon.dev\/projects\/schweitzer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4973"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/monsoon.dev\/projects\/schweitzer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monsoon.dev\/projects\/schweitzer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/monsoon.dev\/projects\/schweitzer\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}