Health Leadership Apprentice Program coordinator Landon A. Hackley authored the following post.
Robert Epstein is no ordinary University of Texas at Austin student. In fact, his first three semesters of college were at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. However, Epstein felt a pull back to Austin, a place he called home during his elementary school days, and he hasn’t looked back since.
Epstein brought with him a desire to improve educational disparities across the city through a specialized GED tutoring program he calls GHealth Austin. It started when Epstein attempted to sign up for a GED tutoring information meeting in Baltimore that turned out to be a commitment to a trip downtown to tutor through YO Baltimore, or Youth Opportunity Baltimore.
“I thought I had signed up for information, but it turned out I signed up for a shift, as I received an email that said, ‘See you at the bus stop tomorrow morning at 9 a.m.!’” Epstein said, recalling the experience vividly. “Oh buddy! I figured I couldn’t back out now, so I showed up at the bus at 9 a.m.” he said.
The events that followed were life-changing for him.
Epstein said he was asked to give a lesson on the respiratory system to a small class of students. While he reminisced about his positive experience teaching on the fly so successfully, he said what really stuck with him was the realization that the students he taught “were forced out of high school because of social determinants” and yet were coming back to work to earn the degree they had always wanted. He said the students were “curious well beyond the scope of the test, making the information applicable to their lives.”
He was inspired by the students’ tenacity to learn, so after realizing Austin lacked a similar program upon arrival, he got straight to work.
Epstein joined the Health Leadership Apprentice Program in the spring of 2018, where he met eager students who would help him forge what is now known as GHealth Austin, a “health science education organization that helps students prepare for high school equivalency tests and increases [students’] health literacy, equipping them to achieve their education goals and improve their health and the health of their community.” Epstein said he couldn’t do it without the help of his fellow HLAs and peers Faiz Baqai (HLA spring 2018), Katie Na (HLA spring 2018), Shreya Thiagarajan (HLA fall 2018), Rithika Prakash, Andrea Arrigunaga and Ashley Luu.
GHealth Austin has already grown to more than 25 volunteer educators and has partnered with two major organizations to improve educational resources and outreach efforts. One of those is the American Heart Association.
“The American Heart Association is excited to team up with GHealth Austin to help support such an important initiative,” American Heart Association executive director Joel Rice said. “Our team at the AHA will be providing relevant resources to support the curriculum and will be coordinating a CPR training for the students in the program.”
“Our hope is that together we can help provide educational health resources that will not only educate students but also help them and their families live longer, healthier lives,” he said.
Another partner is LifeWorks, a nonprofit education center serving the Austin community.
“I think it’s going to be a great opportunity for the students in our HSE [high school equivalency] program to meet and interact with college students,” Nicholas Winowsky, program director of LifeWorks’ Education and Workforce Development programs, said. “I think that it’s going to be a huge inspirational opportunity for them to hear from students who are in college pursuing really exciting careers, and I think that it may potentially inspire them to want to follow in those footsteps.”
If you are interested in Epstein’s program, reach out to an HLA program coordinator to learn more (Landon Hackley or Kelsey Mumford).