Hear from Strive’s Program Managers as they shed light on their teams’ exciting and impactful projects for Semester Two. We’re excited to see you at our events and volunteering opportunities!
Strive Conference
The Strive Conference is an annual event that captures our core values of health promotion and education via a panel with key leaders in the public health ecosystem and a case competition on a pertinent public health issue. For the first time, Strive is excited to announce that we will be collaborating with Melbourne University Health Initiative and 180 Degrees Consulting Unimelb on the case competition aspect of Strive Conference 2021!
The Global Health Case Competition (GHCC) will be an interdisciplinary case competition, involving students from multiple faculties, where participants will be prompted to provide a solution to a case study. This year, we aim to provide a case study that focuses specifically on the youth mental health crisis and the mental wellbeing of University of Melbourne students.
We look forward to seeing you at the GHCC workshop on the 6th of September and Finals Night on the 16th of September!
Make sure to stay tuned via our Facebook page for more information and updates regarding Strive Conference 2021.
University Engagement
The University Engagement team aims to promote wellness among our peers and local community through informative speaker sessions and interactive activities. Our goal is to create an environment to encourage healthy lifestyles within the campus community, improve health literacy on campus, and create an environment for students to meet others who are passionate about public health topics. During Semester 2, we have planned many exciting activities for students, such as a trip to Queen Vic Market and a speaker session about health literacy during COVID-19. In addition, we hope to increase campus awareness of Strive’s initiatives and find some amazing speakers for the case competition!
Brianna Heinken
My name is Brianna Heinken and I’m currently a 2nd year Bachelor of Biomedicine (Neuroscience) and Diploma of Languages (Spanish) student at the University of Melbourne. I’m passionate about health literacy, policy-making, mental health, and making an impact in the lives of others. In my free time, I like to get active outdoors, spend time with family and friends, explore the world, and read books. You can catch me around campus and I’m always ready to have a chat about our University Engagement initiatives or public health!
Publications
The Publications team is responsible for creating publications that inspire students while empowering them with the knowledge and awareness to contribute positively to global public health. So far we’ve achieved this via the creation of Regimen: Striving for Global Health, of which you are currently reading an article within Edition 3. Each edition so far has featured articles written by our committee, and interviews with leading public health professionals. Topics have ranged widely, including explorations of pediatrics, advice for students, climate change, equitable vaccine distribution, and personalised medicine. This semester we look forward to continuing to publish Regimen while writing the case study for the GHCC.
Ben Griffiths
My name is Ben Griffiths and I’m currently a 4th year Bachelor of Commerce (Economics) and Diploma in Languages (French) student at the University of Melbourne. I’m passionate about policy, public health, climate change, international collaboration, and finding ways to combine these interests to make a tangible impact. In my spare time I like to play guitar, learn more about the world, hang out with friends, and write articles. You can find more of my current and previous writing at Cainz, ESSA Unimelb, Melbourne Microfinance Initiative, and LSE International Development Review.
Storybook
The Storybook team aims to promote healthy-eating associations within preschool children through the creation of a nutrition storybook, and provide parents with an easy-to-read and accessible resource on nutrition and meal prep. We have also been working on virtual COVID-19 health & hygiene and physical activity workshops. During Semester 2, we are working on translating the storybook to three predominant languages in Melbourne (Mandarin, Arabic, and Vietnamese), disseminating the workshops to primary schools, and creating an in-person format of the health & hygiene workshop for use after the pandemic. Additionally, we hope to engage in more team building activities and partake in the Strive case competition!
Shanaya Ramchandani
Hi! My name is Shanaya Ramchandani and I am a third-year Bachelor of Biomedicine student, majoring in Pharmacology. I am passionate about medical research, in particular cancer pharmacology (have published four peer-reviewed papers), mental health treatment and neuropharmacology, as well as infectious disease treatments. I have also been heavily involved in charity, and outside university, I run a non-profit clothing initiative based in Singapore, called wear:change, consisting of fifteen team members. I am also an Indian Classical Dancer, and enjoy painting, cooking, cocktail-making, and hanging out with friends during my free time!
Nutrition Initiative
Semester 2 will see the fruition of the Nutrition Initiative’s in-person workshops. Our main focus will be delivering workshops to schools in north and west Melbourne. We aim to host 1 workshop per month and adapt our program as we go. We are fortunate to informally partner with Sanitarium Australia, who have generously donated resources to support our workshops. It is very important for us to collect feedback through post-workshop surveys so we can achieve this goal. We also hope to refilm our video workshops, which the film from our first attempt was unfortunately corrupt. However our primary focus is the in-person workshops, hopefully running 6 times throughout semester 2.
Jessica Louise Parry
Hi there, my name is Jessica Louise Parry and I manage the Nutrition Workshop initiative of Community Engagement at Strive. My interest in nutrition science and education is what propelled me to apply for project management with Strive. I am currently a Masters student researching vitamins in plants with mass spectrometry. I am really excited to apply my research when teaching nutrition to children.
University Engagement
The University Engagement team aims to promote wellness among our peers and local community through informative speaker sessions and interactive activities. Our goal is to create an environment to encourage healthy lifestyles within the campus community, improve health literacy on campus, and create an environment for students to meet others who are passionate about public health topics. During Semester 2, we have planned many exciting activities for students, such as a trip to Queen Vic Market and a speaker session about health literacy during COVID-19. In addition, we hope to increase campus awareness of Strive’s initiatives and find some amazing speakers for the case competition!
Brianna Heinken
My name is Brianna Heinken and I’m currently a 2nd year Bachelor of Biomedicine (Neuroscience) and Diploma of Languages (Spanish) student at the University of Melbourne. I’m passionate about health literacy, policy-making, mental health, and making an impact in the lives of others. In my free time, I like to get active outdoors, spend time with family and friends, explore the world, and read books. You can catch me around campus and I’m always ready to have a chat about our University Engagement initiatives or public health!
Strive Clinic
In Semester 2, Strive Clinic is looking to strengthen our relationship with Bolton Clarke and deliver more CPR workshops to elderly people across the country via Zoom, and hopefully have an in-person session so we can make it as interactive as possible! We’ve received feedback that the workshops (that are run by students from multiple disciplines) are highly valuable and informative for the recipients so far!
In addition, we also look forward to attending the Avalon Centre drop-in sessions again once COVID allows, and get back to providing basic health check-ups and wound care for people who come by, whilst also providing our student volunteers the opportunity to refine their skills.
Finally, we hope to help out those applying for medical school by running our annual mock MMI workshops! That will be coming up soon so stay tuned.
Audrey Lui
Hello! I’m Audrey, the Director of Clinic for 2021. I first got involved with Strive in 2018, as much of Strive’s mission aligned with my interests—promoting health literacy and improving access to healthcare in the community. As such, I am also involved in volunteering outside of uni as well as various clubs within uni. I’m currently a 2nd year medical student and I really hope my extracurricular experiences and lessons can enhance my interaction with patients as well as colleagues in the future!
Strive Student Health Initiative 