{"id":991,"date":"2019-11-19T23:36:28","date_gmt":"2019-11-19T23:36:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/?p=991"},"modified":"2025-10-02T17:16:01","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T17:16:01","slug":"bringing-healthcare-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/bringing-healthcare-home\/","title":{"rendered":"Bringing healthcare home"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Snapchat-2107919295<\/a>Freshman year got off to a rough start for Andrea Camacho, now a junior studying Health and Human Performance<\/a> at À¶Ý®ÊÓƵ.<\/p>\n

The first year away from her island home in Saipan<\/a> was full of difficult transitions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had never been away from island life, and the transition to American living was overwhelming,\u201d Camacho said. \u201cI come from a very low-income home \u2014 poverty-stricken, really.\u201d<\/p>\n

Culture shock soon led to depression, but staff from TRIO Student Support Services, the EOU Counseling Center<\/a> and the MOSAIC Center<\/a> reached out and made sure Camacho had the resources she needed to be successful.<\/p>\n

Since then, she\u2019s become dedicated to developing public health systems in her own community.<\/p>\n

\u201cMental health isn\u2019t really talked about in the islands,\u201d Camacho said. \u201cI had never had access to counseling before, but then I realized how important all the aspects of health \u2014 mental, spiritual and physical all work together.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2018 she received a grant from the United Health Foundation<\/a>\u2019s (UHF) Asian Pacific Islanders Fund that will help finance the rest of her bachelor\u2019s degree. Scholarship recipients from across the country were invited to attend the annual UHF Diverse Scholars Forum<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Camacho represented EOU at the three-day conference last spring in Washington, D.C., where she discussed a range of contemporary healthcare issues with undergraduate, graduate and doctoral students. Scholars met with policymakers and thought leaders, networked with peers and guest speakers, and shared their own ideas and experiences.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe conference taught me the importance of staying compassionate and humble while keeping your confidence,\u201d Camacho said.<\/p>\n

With a minor in psychology<\/a>, Camacho said she hopes to build a career in public health policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to go back to my island and help my people,\u201d she said. \u201cWe need to combat obesity, preventable diseases,\u00a0and addiction, and to provide safe spaces for youth that are encountering mental health issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

She\u2019s considering starting a nonprofit that would provide holistic health for indigenous people, such as nutrition education.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is hard in the islands,\u201d Camacho said. \u201cPeople vacation where we live, but they don\u2019t see deeper into the poverty and struggle that are part of the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

She served as ASEOU<\/a>\u2019s Director for Political Affairs in 2018-19, and learned about the policies that shape the region, as well as the university community. This year, she\u2019s the ASEOU Director for Diversity and Equity, representing minority groups on campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to go back to my island and help my people.\u201d<\/div>\n

\u201cI\u2019m narrowing down what I\u2019m passionate about,\u201d Camacho said. \u201cI enjoyed working to find solutions to issues, and encouraging students to engage in politics because it affects us all.\u201d<\/p>\n

From her first experience living in a two-story building, to finding mentors on campus, Camacho has built a vision of her future during the last couple of years at EOU. She said staff in TRIO and Student Affairs provided advice and support that kept her committed to her education.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople from EOU have really helped me grow as an individual and form how I want my life to look five years from now,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Looking forward, Camacho said she feels prepared for the challenge of bringing healthcare services to some of the most isolated communities in the Northern Mariana Islands.<\/p>\n

\u201cHealthcare providers put themselves through so much work and sacrifice to keep giving back and that\u2019s beautiful to me,\u201d she said. \u201cThe world is hard enough, we need to come together to make it better for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Freshman year got off to a rough start for Andrea Camacho, now a junior studying Health and Human Performance at À¶Ý®ÊÓƵ. The first year away from her island home in Saipan was full of difficult transitions. \u201cI had never been away from island life, and the transition to American living was overwhelming,\u201d Camacho […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":380,"featured_media":992,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,3],"tags":[12,45],"class_list":["post-991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fall-2019","category-university-news","tag-scholarships","tag-student"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/380"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=991"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2700,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/991\/revisions\/2700"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eou.edu\/mountaineer-magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}