Six of our MPH students attended the 2020 CityMatCH Maternal and Child Health Leadership Conference, held September 16-18, online. What follows is a post from one of these attendees.
Megan Schoonveld, BS
This year I had the opportunity to attend the CityMatCH conference in New Orleans, but virtually from my own couch. It was a great experience to see the Maternal and Child Health community to come together and still hold a conference during these times. It was interesting to experience a conference virtually, and there were different aspects that had issues, but overall, it was a positive experience. I really enjoyed the session called “Decolonizing Gender in Parent and Child Health”, where Alyshia Macaysa discussed a lot about ways public health can colonize spaces that center whiteness. She made the presentation interactive in a way that I did not think was possible for a virtual conference. She made the space welcoming and made it an environment for everyone to learn.
When attending this session, I thought it would mostly be about gender, but the presentation touched a lot about bringing whiteness out of conversations and spaces to help bring the voices of marginalized communities to the front. She touched on a lot the importance of community-based participatory research, and it really made me think about ways to ensure in my future work that voices are heard in spaces. In the disability community, intersectionality of ability, gender, race, and socioeconomic status combine to make unique life experiences that may be masked by white voices. This session tied into a symposium I watched during the conference titled “Authentic Engagement”. They discussed how authentic engagement entails creating spaces where one can be honest and how one must think about how their presence and what they say in the room can affect the conversation that occurs and the norms that are created for the conversation.
Megan Schoonveld, BS, is a second-year MPH student, concentrating in Maternal and Child Health. She plans to graduate in May 2021. Her interests include access to healthcare for children and youth with special care needs and children and reproductive rights for mothers with disabilities (ASD).
