THE PENDULUM

by Alex Trice, September 22, 2009

When senior Business Fellow Drea Dorrow applied for the prestigious Lumen Prize her sophomore year, she knew exactly what she wanted to do:  She wanted to start a project that would combine the admiration and respect she had for nonprofit organization CURE International with the knowledge she had gained in her years at Elon as an economics major.  

"A lot of my previous research in economics has dealt with developing countries and looking at specific factors that lead to successful development in a country, including health care, education, infrastructure and positive political environment," Dorrow said.  "So after doing a lot of economic research for class on those indicators, I was able to use a case study at CURE International hospital to demonstrate that health care and education really do improve the quality of life for individuals in developing countries." 

CURE International, which was founded by a man from Dorrow's church, is a nonprofit organization that offers free orthopedic care and surgery to thousands of children living in developing countries. Many of the children that receive treatment from CURE International have club feet, a condition in which children are born with feet turned inward, making the ordinary task of walking extremely difficult, or in some cases, impossible.

Dorrow had already spent time working for CURE throughout high school, where she was in charge of public relations and fundraising for the organization, and again after her sophomore year in college, when she worked for the organization as an intern. The idea of working alongside it again, this time for a Lumen project, was a natural choice for her. 

Dorrow said when she submitted an application of her project idea to the Lumen committee, she was not sure she would receive the scholarship grant of $15,000.  Additionally, Dorrow discovered she enjoyed the application process because it helped her gain a clearer understanding of what she wants to do in the future. 

"After completing the application the project and the idea of studying health care in developing countries was something I wanted to pursue, regardless of whether I received the Lumen Prize," Dorrow said.

In April 2008, Dorrow learned she had been selected as one of 15 recipients of the Lumen Scholarship. The grant money was enough to send Dorrow to Malawi the following January, where CURE International had one of its most successful hospitals.

"I figured it would be a really good place for me to do my research," Dorrow said.

During her time in Malawi, Dorrow focused her research specifically on the effect health care had in the improvement of average household incomes. She administered a survey that looked into the economic development of the environment.

While there, Dorrow said she found the overall experience to be life-changing, not only because she was surrounded by an entirely foreign culture, but because she got to observe first-hand the extreme poverty evident in the lives around her.

"One of the hard things that I learned is that there really is no easy answer or simple solution to solving the world's poverty problems," Dorrow said.  "But it's little steps, like providing health care that allows a kid to walk to school, that makes the difference." 

Dorrow said she hopes to return to Malawi this Winter Term to do further research she will use as part of her senior thesis project, and as a way to give CURE International valuable information that will help it receive larger grants in the future.