Project Prevent held its first annual health care fair for the economically disadvantaged in the Anvil Facility Center of West Baltimore from 12 to 4 p.m. on Saturday by offering a variety of prevention screenings and medical services. Some of the organizations that offered services were the American Red Cross for program education, Brain Attack for stroke assessment and HERO for AIDS and STDs screening.
"I first started this project after taking Issues in Health-care Delivery class," Junior Co-Founder Solmaz Pirzadeh said. "The best way to keep low-income people in optimum health is to prevent the disease before it causes suffering and is too late to cure."
Pirzadeh had always been interested in low-income Baltimore families and wanted them to receive health care which saved time, money and resources. She believed that it was her duty as a pre-med student to help the working poor; consequently, she applied for the program last year as a community service project and won the grant from the JHU Alumni Association as well as received assistance from the Office of Volunteer Services.
Co-Coordinator junior Lily Danilali got involved in this project after her experience with Cuba's public health-care systems.
"Cuba had incredible preventative medicine that was economically feasible," Danilali said. "There were various health-care checkups in order to catch diseases earlier."
As a result, Danilali wanted to apply what she saw and learned to Baltimore since she saw poverty prevalent in Greenmount, which disabled many people from receiving adequate health care.
"There was so much disparity," Danilali said. "I collaborated with Solmaz, and we both refined the project over the year."
Project Prevent is a free health-care fair, which other organizations attend to educate and provide health services for the economically disadvantaged such as lead and diabetes screening, pharmacy assistance and immunizations. The project coordinators handled all the logistics as well as organized all the agencies of the fair.
"My job that day was to greet people at the door and direct them to whatever area they were most interested in or to explain the services," Co-Coordinator Tannaz Rasouli said. "So many people would walk in and ask three or four times, making sure everything was free, almost in disbelief, so that was the most rewarding part for me."
The community project was held in the Anvil Facility Center of 1505 Eutaw St. for its easy access to Baltimore city life and community outreach, receiving good "traffic," according to Danilali.
"We chose the site to be [the Anvil Facility Center] because it was in the center of the area which needed the most help," Pirzadeh said. "By being at the community center, we even received food donations from Dunkin Donuts. Everyone received a free breakfast consisting of donuts and juice."
In addition, the coordinators widely publicized the event by handing out fliers and speaking to people in barber shops and churches, which was facilitated even more by the radio station 92Q's coverage.
"We wanted to reach the different aspects of Baltimore," Danilali said. "No one was turned away. It was an equal opportunity for everyone."
Project Prevent is currently a yearly event and had its first turnout of approximately 75 people from all age ranges and categories, but members hope to expand and increase the frequency of the event. Danilali hopes that next year's project will include a mobile fair and a yellow pages health resource guide aimed for the economically challenged.
"We hope to include more health and social organizations such as programs for unemployment and drug rehabilitation," Pirzadeh said.
All coordinators emphasized their happiness with the turnout and success of the project.
"I know we're all already excited for next year, especially given the response we received from both vendors and attendees, who expressed their gratitude repeatedly," Rasouli said. "The organizations were very supportive, and there was a general sense of everyone wanting to be there.
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