A Message from Katie McClelland; Ambassadorial Scholar to England

(Thanks for the efforts of Dr. Shirley King)

Hi!
I've been meaning to email you! It's been such a great (and fast!) year, and I can't believe it's 2/3 over with. I'll finish in mid-August and then I'm off to Stanford, which I'm SO excited about! It's the best school for me in so many ways and I'm so happy to have the opportunity to go there. They have courses in community health, lots of public health clinics to volunteer in, the opportunity to get paid (well!) to do public health research while in school, and lots of mountains in the area for me to hike - so perfect!

Things have been going very well this year. I've been visiting Rotary clubs around London, and frequently going to my host club, the London Paddington Club. My fellow London Ambassadorial Scholars and I attended the Rotary In The British Isles Ambassadorial Scholars conference in Bournemouth last September, followed shortly by our District conference at Eastbourne. I've attached a photo of me and the other scholars at the District conference, and I'll email my the person who always takes photos at my club so I can get you a few more. My parents were able to come visit for Christmas, which was fantastic. They'd never been out of the country before, so it was quite an adventure for them, and particularly nice because my younger brother Owen, who is studying in Bologna, was also able to join us. I'm loving my course - it's been a great opportunity to study gender, health, and the developing world in depth and with some really brilliant people from all over the world. In fact, I'm about to start my thesis project with a lecturer that I really admire, and it's going to be on the reframing of condoms as family planning tools, rather than disease prevention tools, and the benefits that could have on HIV and STI prevention with (I think) little effect on fertility. In this course they don't recommend that students go overseas to do primary research, so my thesis will be a project proposal only, but I'm really anxious to get started to work on it!

Exams are looming, so I'm trying to work especially hard these next few weeks, but I'll try to write again soon with more updates. And I'll definitely get more photos to you as soon as I can get a hold of some.

Please tell everyone at the Carlisle Sunrise club hello for me!
Katie