Prior to coming to the University of Maryland, my career and
education was steeped in community work. When I learned I was going to Ethiopia
to work with our colleagues in Debre Berhan, I was intent on continuing this
pattern. After all, I could do all the literature searches in the world and
still not have the expert knowledge of this community that would be needed to
effectively carry out our work. I did my research but also prepared to
interface with our colleagues and the community to see what they felt was
important and hear what they had to say.
Engaging the community and learning what they think is
important and what they perceive as challenges is critical to effectively
developing interventions. Since we were interested in branching out into food safety
work from our work with gardening and nutrition, we needed to ask the community
what actions they took to ensure the safety of their produce, what actions they
took to prevent microbial contamination in the garden, and in what areas of
food safety and gardening did they
want education and training. The results from these surveys will be critical to
developing education and outreach that is in line with what the community wants
and needs. 
I also had a great opportunity to speak to our DBU
colleagues at a seminar. I spoke on food borne illness, and I shared
information regarding the epidemiology, risk factors, and risk management
techniques for foodborne illness here in the US. I also presented the results
of my own literature review of food borne illness in Ethiopia. Sharing the challenges we face in our own nation
was a key aspect of my presentation, and this resonated with the audience. One
faculty member noted that his community didn’t think that the US had a problem
with foodborne illness, and hearing about our own difficulties made it easier
for them to share their own challenges. A productive discussion of the
challenges Ethiopia faces regarding food borne illness resulted.
I think one of the best examples of why this kind of
community engagement is critical is a culturally important food in Ethiopia – Kitfo.
Kitfo, and other foods like it, are dishes where meat is served raw. If our
group had simply come in handing out meat thermometers and saying that everyone
must cook their meat to a certain temperature, we might have missed the
opportunity to ask key questions about food preparation practices, cultural
relevance of ingredients and typical dishes, and to learn about how best to
open a dialogue with the community and work together to improve health. I look
forward to continuing to work with our Ethiopian colleagues!
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