Public health in Vietnam: Sylvia Smyth

Young leader Sylvia Smyth has gained a wealth of travel experience in Asia and academic and work experience in the area of Public Health. She will soon be taking on a new position in Vietnam with HealthRight International, a New York-based Non Governmental Organisation who work mainly in the field of children and HIV.

Sylvia will be working as a country representative, a role which involves implementing home-based care projects for children affected by HIV and piloting foster care programmes. Sylvia spoke of her enthusiasm for her new position. “I am really excited about the work of the organisation, given the need to support families and children who are affected by HIV in Vietnam.”

Sylvia’s involvement with the Asia:NZ commenced in 2006, when she gained a scholarship to study language for one year in China. Whereas most scholarship recipients choose to go to Beijing, Sylvia selected Sichuan University, Chengdu, as her place of study in order to gain an experience of real China. She enjoyed speaking Chinese with fellow foreign students and seeing people of different cultures such as the Tibetans, who “swagger through the city with their cowboy walk, sometimes with a knife at their hip and beads at their neck.”

At the end of 2007, Sylvia completed a Masters of Public Health through the universities of Otago, Dunedin, and Monash, Melbourne. She explains that the public health field is essentially about diagnosing and treating health problems at a societal level. Her year at Otago included subjects such as health and public policy and epidemiology while, in Australia, the focus was more on health populations in developing countries.

From February 2008 until recently, Sylvia has been working for UNAIDS, Vietnam, helping to coordinate the overall response to HIV. This year has seen her work focus on policy and advocacy. She has learnt a lot working for UNAIDS but looks forward to her new job with HealthRight International which involves working more closely with the community.

Sylvia’s homeland is never too far from her thoughts. She enjoyed meeting other New Zealanders at the Off Shore Young Leader’s Forum last year and comments, “I'd love to return to New Zealand one of these days so that I can breathe the fresh air, eat organic and run on the beach once again!”