Leading The Way
Essay Contest
Sponsored by Caring Friends, Inc.
In collaboration with the Houston Global Health Collaborative (HGHC) Grants Steering Committee,
Caring Friends, Inc. is sponsoring the second annual Leading the Way Essay Contest that will select and
award at least 3 student essays focusing on students’ philosophical and moral convictions and how they
influence their motivation to serve in the community. Each recipient will receive up to a $500 cash award.
Essays may be featured at the annual HGHC Impact Conference on February 12-13, 2016, at the Jones
Graduate School of Business at Rice University. Essays due January 1, 2016.
What is the Houston Global Health Collaborative (HGHC)?
The Houston Global Health Collaborative is a student-driven organization created to reflect the mutual
global health interests across the medical, educational, and service-oriented institutions in the greater
Houston area. Our mission is to unite the member institutions of the Texas Medical Center (TMC) for the
advancement of global health education, research, and service.
What is Caring Friends, Inc.?
Mission statement: Caring Friends learns from the underserved, targets hand-up responses to human need,
initiates Leading The Way awards without regard to race, gender or religious affiliation, while deriving its
ethos from the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.
The global crisis over broken medical equipment in developing countries led Caring Friends to partner both
with Medical Bridges in starting their new biomedical equipment repair room in 2012 and with Houston
Rotarians in starting a first ever medical equipment repair training school in Haiti in 2011. Other Caring
Friends initiatives involve children at risk in schools and apartments, ex-offenders in re-entry programs,
victims of fires or domestic violence, biosand filters and water borne diseases in Haiti, and refugee youth.
Who can apply?
Applicants must be part-time or full-time students in the TMC in a healthcare, public health, or a healthrelated discipline. Previous recipients may not apply again.
Essay Recipients
Winning essays will receive monetary in the amount up to $500. The Board of Caring Friends wants to
meet with the winning essayists and the recipients will be expected to attend the HGHC Global Health
Impact Conference. Essays will be featured at the annual HGHC Impact Conference.
How to Apply
Return the written essay and application form to hghcgrants@gmail.com by January 1st, 2016. Essays will
be reviewed by both the HGHC Grant Steering Committee and the Board of Caring Friends, Inc. Awards
will be distributed by February 1, 2016.
While the final selections will be made by the Caring Friends board, we are interested in diverse
philosophical, moral and theological traditions that inform sustained and compassionate engagement
with the issues of global health, regardless of the faith, or non-faith, perspectives of applicants.
Therefore, the rubric to evaluate final award winners includes: (1) clear articulation of the moral,
philosophical and/or theological vision of the applicant and (2) the prospects (if not promise) of the
applicant of sustained professional engagement with global health.
Application
Name: ____________________________________
School E-mail: ______________________________ Phone number: ____________________
Area of study: ______________________________ Expected graduation date: ____________
Make a bulleted list of impactful service activities in which you have participated.
Discuss your value system, motivation, and idealism and how it shapes your global health perspective
and commitment to service. Please provide specific examples from your own experience in service
projects and activities (from the list above). Please limit your response to one single spaced page using
11.5pt font.
Return the written essay and application form to hghcgrants@gmail.com by January 1st, 2016.