Each month, END7 honors one student who has made a significant contribution to our growing movement of student advocates dedicated to seeing the end of NTDs. We are very proud to introduce our September 2015 Student of the Month, Anjali Bhatla, the Rice University END7 Student Advisory Board representative. Anjali, a junior majoring in Health Sciences and Policy Studies, first became interested in NTDs through working at the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. While conducting policy research on NTDs in Latin America and India, Anjali realized the global importance of the movement to decrease the burden of NTDs. Realizing that NTD treatments are a global health “best buy” and that the END7 campaign was a high-impact way to support the effort to control and eliminate NTDs, Anjali founded an END7 chapter at Rice University.

Anjali explains, “END7 at Rice is taking a three-pronged approach to addressing the need for greater investment in NTDs through committees focused on marketing, fundraising, and advocacy. To increase awareness of NTDs in our community we plan to implement creative events, programming, and social media campaigns across campus. Through our END7 chapter, we hope to facilitate an exchange of ideas on how to address health disparities in the developing world.”

As President of END7 at Rice, Anjali is excited about the enthusiasm and interest that the club has received and is looking forward to growing the club and educating the Rice and Houston community on the importance of “de-neglecting” NTDs. She detailed her vision for student leadership to fight NTDs in an essay published in the Houston Chronicle in August. In September, under Anjali’s leadership, Rice University collected more student signatures on END7’s advocacy action focused on the Sustainable Development Goals than any other university.

Anjali also attended the first annual END7 Student Advocacy Day in Washington, DC on April 22, meeting with congressional offices to advocate for the protection of federal funding for NTD treatment through the United States Agency for International Development’s NTD Program. Anjali and the two other Rice University classmates who traveled from Houston to D.C. for the event wrote about their experience for End the Neglect. Inspired by her time in D.C., Anjali gave a “TED talk” about student advocacy at a NTD workshop co-hosted by END7 and the Baker Institute for Public Policy on September 29.

We are so grateful for Anjali’s continued commitment to END7 and are excited to see our like her grow. If you are ready to get your school involved in END7’s work, contact the END7’s student outreach coordinator at to learn how you can get started!