Study Pacific and Global Health at Otago

Neki Haig:

Hi, I’m Neki Haig and I’m currently studying Pacific and Global Health at the University of Otago.

Ever since I was growing up, I always wanted to help people, no matter how big or how small, and I always wanted to be a doctor. But short after graduating, I realised, you know what, I do not want to be a doctor. And that’s when I came across Pacific and Global Health at the University of Otago.

The main reason I moved to New Zealand was for this one major, which not only looks at health and everything that goes along with helping people, but it’s also flexible enough that you can incorporate other divisions in the University such as economics and politics, which are some of my interests.

And at the same time, you can also build a family who will navigate this journey with you and create a home away from home.

Associate Professor Rosalina Richards:

Talofa lava, mālō e lelei, kia orāna, fakaalofa lahi atu, bula vinaka, mālō ni, welcome to Otago. My name is Rosalina Richards, and I am here as part of our Bachelor of Health Science to talk to you about the experience that you might have if you come down to join us in Dunedin.

So the really interesting and important thing about our Bachelor of Health Science is to know that there are so many jobs in health. Often we think about our health professionals, and we do train amazing health professionals down here, but behind those health professionals are all of our managers, our health navigators, our community workers who make sure that our people in the community are reaching the services that they need when they need them.

So for us, in the Bachelor of Health Science, that’s part of our job—having those connectors, building those connectors, to make sure that we get the health services that we need.

The particular major that I’m involved in and that I love is our major in Pacific and Global Health.

So Pacific and Global Health is just this amazing, huge area because we’re interested in the big questions that affect the world. So when you think about our global issues of health, we think about issues like climate change. We think about issues like infectious disease. We think about issues of poverty and inequity.

So what we do in our degree is we take a Pacific lens. We look at all of these things, bringing in the stories from our region, our Pacific Islands, as well as our amazing Pacific community here in Dunedin.

So alongside our Pacific Health colleagues who bring the global health, who bring perspectives from all across Asia and Africa and Europe, we start to look at—as a world, as a global space—what can we do to make things different?

The most amazing things in our teaching is actually our students. So we have students join us from all around the world, and in the class you’re sitting there with amazing, diverse people who bring all sorts of experiences from their home nations, from their home families, from their culture, from their faith. And we bring all that together in a little class and we talk about: what does it mean to be healthy?

Well, if you think about health holistically, it’s not just about your physical health—it’s about your mental health, your spiritual health, the health of your environment.

And we get to throw all of those ideas into the pot, into the—onto the mat in the middle of the room—and start to come up with some ideas about how to fix these things when things aren’t going so well.

So we’re really trying to get to a point of action and to give our students tools so that they can go out after their degree and make really big changes.

That might be working directly with communities. It might be working to change policy. It might be working with international health organisations. Wherever our students see that they can bring their skills together.

Because for holistic health, you need to bring holistic skills. If you’re a great artist, if you’re a great mathematician—to bring all of that into the health space.

But most of all, I think what we think about in Pacific Health is: it’s about life and it’s about you. So we help you think about who are you, what is your culture, what do you bring to make a change in terms of health—both for Pacific, for other communities, for our global community.

So good luck with your decision making, and we hope to see you down here.

From our Pacific teaching team, our global Pacific Health teaching team—'e monū'ia—safe travels.