BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – In Nicaragua, 28 percent of all female adolescents are either pregnant or have already given birth—a statistic earning the nation the highest adolescent birth rate in all of Latin America, according to a recent study by the University of Costa Rica School of Public Health.
By providing health information and counseling to the women of Nicaragua through the University of Chicago’s Human Rights Internship Program, Erin Bradley, class of 2010, hopes to help change those statistics.
“It’s really important for social workers to have a human rights lens in the work they do, and it’s also important for human rights activists to include social workers and other ‘ground-level’ personnel in their activism,” said Bradley, a Normal native who double majored in history and Hispanic studies during her time at Illinois Wesleyan and is currently working toward her master’s degree in Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago. “This internship was the perfect opportunity to blend my career development as a social worker with my growing interest in international human rights causes.”