When Anthony Slaton visited Debre Berhan, Ethiopia, in January with the University of Maryland’s Public Health Without Borders program, he said he was in awe of the state of malnutrition he saw in some of the young students there.

“We met with the principal [of a local primary school] to ask him questions about his students,” the junior public health science major said. “He began by telling us that yes, malnutrition was a problem in this school. … To help these students, teachers pooled their money together to buy cookies to give to students so that they at least had something in their belly when they came to class.”

Forty-four percent of children in Ethiopia suffer from chronic undernutrition, according to the U.S. Agency for International Development.

In response to this statistic, Slaton traveled to central Ethiopia for 10 days with three other university students and two faculty members to brainstorm a community public health project — in partnership with Debre Berhan University — to improve community nutrition.

A larger group of students and faculty members from PHWB plans to return to Debre Berhan in June to start the intervention process.

The plan for the project is to introduce more nutritional education to the community and improve diets through gardening at schools, said Stephanie Grutzmacher, a family science professor and PHWB faculty advisor.

To help fund the project and send more students to Ethiopia, PHWB started a Launch UMD campaign with the goal of raising $6,000. With 15 days left in the campaign, they have raised about half of that.

Donations from the Launch UMD campaign will go directly to university students who need help covering any expenses, Slaton said. The money will also contribute to the supplies needed for the project, such as seed packets and teaching materials.

Priya Parikh, president of PHWB, plans to travel to Ethiopia this summer. The junior, who completed the College Park Scholars Global Public Health program, said she is excited about the project’s potential for both university participants and the community’s residents.

“If our work in Debre Berhan can make even a minute difference in the nutrient intake of the kids and their families at these schools, that’s huge,” Parikh said. “We also are giving our members a realistic, practical experience in public health work and global interaction.”

Teachers in Ethiopia often use their own resources to help students — some buy shoe-shining kits so students can make money in the city and even open up their homes to the poorest children — and Slaton said university students have a duty to help these communities.

“All around the world, people are doing incredible things to make the world a better place,” Slaton said. “As students who have an education and the potential to make a difference, we have a responsibility to help.”

One of the key elements of the project is the collaboration with Ethiopian community members and Debre Berhan University students, Slaton said.

“These students offer a different prospective of living and working in Ethiopia that we don’t have,” Slaton said. “Malnutrition is a complex issue, beyond just limited access to food. … Having multiple perspectives working towards one goal strengthens our intervention and improves our chances of reducing the rate of malnutrition in the community.”

The program will offer PHWB students the chance to practice “responsible community intervention,” Grutzmacher said. She said development programs are often unsuccessful when those involved do not understand the community they are working in.

Creating a bridge between American and Ethiopian students so they can teach and learn from each other is crucial to the project’s ongoing success, she said.

“We want to be able to provide high-impact experiences to undergraduate students,” Grutzmacher said. “I want them to see how development works and gain skills in community-based planning.”