Marc Branch, '13
“I’m always a man with a plan,” Marc Branch, ’13, said. “I don’t like to waste time. I came to UR planning to major in political science with the idea of serving in the Peace Corps and then becoming a lawyer.”
Branch’s plan appears to be on track, as he anticipates the Nov. 22 start date of his Peace Corps service as a public-health educator and community-health promoter in Cajamarca, Peru, after completing three months of training.
Branch has been preparing for this experience for at least the last four years.
He started implementing his plan his freshman year by taking political science courses and registering with Build It, the University’s neighborhood-based civic-engagement initiative, to volunteer at the Daily Planet Medical Respite, a respite facility for homeless individuals recovering from surgery or an illness.
“I came to the Daily Planet with a lot of preconceived notions of homeless people,” Branch said. “But after interviewing several patients for a paper I wrote, I realized there is no one profile for homeless people. Everyone’s circumstances are different.
“I met a man who was an engineer who had made a couple of bad choices. I interviewed a boxer who had won championships in Virginia. Some of the patients who suffered from mental illness hadn’t received the help they needed to improve their mental health prior to coming to the Daily Planet.
“Another UR student and I gave presentations to the patients on hygiene and STDs and created a reference book on STDs for the patients. My Daily Planet experience was eye opening.”
Branch continued exploring health care issues by participating his sophomore year in a UR student-led fitness and nutrition program for elementary school children at the Northside Family YMCA, another Build It partner.
He volunteered in the VCU Medical Center emergency room his senior year. For the past three years, he worked at the University’s Weinstein Center for Recreation and Wellness, first as a facility attendant and then as a facility supervisor.
But nothing did as much to inform his view of health care as a basic human right as his study abroad semester in Buenos Aires, Argentina, through the SIT program Social Movements and Human Rights.
“We took a field trip to San Juan de Dios, a slum in Salta, Argentina,” Branch said. “The houses were made of anything people could find. I saw six people living in a one-room lean-to. They had no access to health facilities or clean water.
“Their living conditions violated the Argentine constitution’s guarantee to uphold basic human rights.”
Branch witnessed firsthand the devastating effect of government policy on society’s most marginalized citizens. The Argentine government decided it would no longer recognize San Juan de Dios as a neighborhood.
“The government viewed the residents as squatters and told them to leave,” Branch said. “But the people had nowhere else to go.”
Addressing this kind of inequity in government policy is the end goal for Branch. He plans to pursue a law degree when he returns from his stint with the Peace Corps and ultimately work on effecting positive changes in public policy.
“I’ve always been interested in how government works,” Branch said. “If you get involved with government, you get to change things.”
Photo: A resident of the San Juan de Dios neighborhood in Salta, Argentina, directs Marc Branch, ’13, as he mixes powder with boiling water to create milk that will be rationed to local families.