Torrential Flow

About the Book

About the Author

I grew up in a third-world country, where health and welfare were always at risk. Torrential flow describes diffi culties I faced as I journeyed from my poor native country to the United States and struggled to hang on to the privilege of education my family passed on to me, which ultimately led me to realize my dream of becoming a medical doctor. My desire to change the lives of children in thirdworld countries began to form when I was just three years old, on the day when a childhood friend died of malaria. This was my fi rst encounter with death, and it would not be the last. As my home country struggled through a dictatorship and a bloody revolution, I continued to learn. I was invited to serve as a delegate for the Parliament of Children, designed to give children in third-world countries a voice. Children had fi nally been given rights through the newly signed Convention on the Rights of the Child, which dictated standards for the treatment of children for all member states of the United Nations. Years after leaving the parliament of children, my family and I began a new life in America, working minimum-wage jobs and struggling to learn English. Ultimately after enduring various struggles, I was accepted at Stony Brook University, where I pursued a degree in Biochemistry and subsequently at the University of Maryland school of Medicine. Every single minute in Africa, twenty children die just because they were born into poverty. In sub-Saharan Africa, malaria kills one child every thirty seconds. Although my struggles cannot compare to the daily struggles of many of these children, I hope this story will demonstrate that any one of them can be worthy to society with just a little hope and someone to look up to. With support, they can perhaps beat the odds against them. Here, I outlined the people (my mentors) who have indirectly or directly helped me throughout the years and given me a drive I am today very thankful for . . .