The Albert Schweitzer Fellowship announced last week the selection of the 2011-12 class of New Orleans Schweitzer Fellows. Samuel Bradley, music therapy graduate student at Loyola University New Orleans, was selected as one of the 12 who will partner with community-based organizations developing and implementing yearlong, mentored service projects addressing health disparities throughout New Orleans.
Bradley will implement a music therapy program at the Pre-college Incubation Experience for Majoring in Math and the Natural Sciences. There, he will work with minority adolescents at improving conflict resolution skills. He joins approximately 250 other Schweitzer Fellows at 13 program sites throughout the United States.
“Being selected as a fellow is an incredible honor,” said Bradley. “It solidifies for me that I was correct in my undergraduate and graduate decision to attend Loyola. It is in attending Loyola that I felt the call to social justice causes championed by the ASF and ultimately my inclusion as an Albert Schweitzer Fellow.”
“Due to the passage of the Affordable Care Act, an estimated 32 million previously uninsured people will soon be entering our country’s health care system for the first time,” says ASF Executive Director Sylvia Stevens-Edouard. “Now more than ever, it is essential that we focus on developing a multidisciplinary pipeline of health professionals who have the dedication, skills, and cultural competency to effectively meet the health needs of these and other underserved people.”
Upon completion of their initial year, the fellows will join a vibrant network of more than 2,000 Schweitzer alumni or “Fellows for Life” who are skilled in, and committed to, addressing the health needs of underserved people throughout their professional careers. Nearly 100 percent of “Fellows for Life” say that their ASF experience is integral to sustaining their commitment to serve the underserved.