Hello world! My name’s Varshini Gali and I’m an incoming junior at Penn from Sarasota, Florida. At Penn, I’m studying Health and Societies in the College of Arts and Sciences. This summer, I’m interning at the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) in Gurgaon, a city near New Delhi. I’m here with my co-intern Hareena, and we’ll be aiding in public health program development.

Although my family is from India, I’ve never visited north India, so I’m very curious to explore the Delhi region and live in this new setting. I’ve stayed briefly in southern cities such as Hyderabad, so it’ll be interesting to discover the parallels between the north and the south. I’ve been taking Hindi classes at Penn for two years, and I’m eager to test my speaking abilities.

At PHFI, my work is primarily focused in development of programs for school-aged children combating non-communicable diseases (NCDs). My first task is to conduct a literature review about current school health programs in India, so we can understand the present situation and identify areas to improve. Navigating government websites to find this information is turning out to be a harder endeavor than I expected, but I’m confident I’ll have a breakthrough at some point. I’m excited to see how this summer will turn out!