D.C. students are gaining new paths to the School of Medicine and Health Sciences thanks to a donation from a national bank.
The Bank of America Charitable Foundation awarded $25,000 to GW programs for D.C. middle and high school students through the University’s medical school last month. The grant will support the Health Education Leadership Program at the Rodham Institute and the Upward Bound program to connect the younger students to other programs to prepare them for college and the health workforce.
Jehan El-Bayoumi, the director of the Rodham Institute, said the grant is in line with the institute’s goal of making the level of medical care equal for all D.C. residents and the leadership program exposes children in D.C. schools to health careers they might not have considered.
“Research shows that when you increase the number of underrepresented minority clinicians, the healthcare and terms of health outcome improves in communities of color,” El-Bayoumi said. “That is another reason why we feel is it important to participate in these programs and we are very grateful for the grant support.”
El-Bayoumi said the grant was awarded to both the Health Education Leadership Program at the Rodham Institute and the Upward Bound program at SMHS to work together in connecting students from the different programs and also connecting them with opportunities at outside programs like the Posse Foundation.
The Posse Foundation offers full-tuition scholarships to students from urban backgrounds. GW announced a partnership with the foundation last year, and this fall 10 Atlanta students will attend GW through the program.
“Posse is a national program that really works with underrepresented minority students to try to give them full ride scholarships to 18 participating universities and GW just became one of those participating universities,” El-Bayoumi said. “What is so wonderful about it is that they have a STEM part and now a premedical program within Posse.”
El-Bayoumi said many support staff members that work alongside physicians are from the communities the institute is trying to reach and those connections make it easier to communicate and reach out to those groups beyond GW.
“When it comes to these kinds of programs we don’t really have to look very far to find kids that can participate,” she said. “We offer priority to the kids of the people that work here.”
El-Bayoumi added that the institute will try to accommodate everyone who applies to program and she plans on growing those relationships with areas outside of Foggy Bottom over the next year.
“I want to get the GW University community to continue to grow our relationships with our community, particularly east of the river, and to do more in improving health equity in the nation’s capital,” she said.
