Hawkins, Jah Named Schweitzer Fellows
Keyachtta Hawkins, DDS Candidate 2018, and Tariq Jah, DDS Candidate 2019, have been awarded with 2017-18 North Carolina Albert Schweitzer Fellowships.
Hawkins and Jah will build on the UNC chapter of the Student National Dental Association’s work with the Center for Accessible Affordable health, Research and Education Clinic, or CAARE Clinic, located in Durham. Currently, students provide free care to adults at the CAARE Clinic once a week. As Schweitzer Fellows, Hawkins and Jah will address the lack of access to dental care and health literacy at the CAARE Clinic by providing free comprehensive dental care and educational health workshops to low income, uninsured adults. Their project is supported by the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Fellows program.
“As always, we are incredibly proud of the work our students commit to doing through the Schweitzer Fellowship program,” said Dr. Ed Swift, associate dean for education. “Our local community benefits greatly from the services provided at the CAARE Clinic, and Keyachtta and Tariq’s commitment to enhancing it and further serving their patients is exactly the kind of outreach we hope to encourage in all our students.”
The North Carolina Albert Schweitzer Fellows Program is a one-year program in which students focus on health-related community service to underserved populations. During the application process, students identify an underserved population and design a community service project that provides direct service to that population. Once selected, students deliver a minimum of 200 service hours to the selected underserved population via their project. The fellowships, given annually, provide selected students with a $3,000 stipend to fund the projects.
Since 1994, the N.C. Albert Schweitzer Fellows Program has supported nearly 425 fellows who have delivered more than 59,000 hours in community service to the state. Nationally, the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship program has provided nearly 600,000 hours of service to those in need.
