Lorenzo Porta is an Emergency Medicine physician attending the 2025/2026 edition of our Master in Global Health. This letter is a testimony of the life-changing experience he had during his internship in Pemba.
“I arrived in Pemba with a research project to carry out, but I realized very early on that it would be impossible to reduce this experience to a simple job. Pemba taught me that doing health is not just about treating diseases: it means getting to know people, listening to them, entering their communities and trying to really understand what they need.
During this month, I had the opportunity to work at Vitongoji Hospital, alongside local professionals, seeing up close the challenges and resources of Pemba health system. I witnessed very difficult situations. I saw how complex it can be to treat a person when resources are limited, but above all I saw something much bigger: people who, despite everything, continue to do their job every day, to take care of others, to look for solutions. And watching them I remembered why I became a doctor: because behind every number, every medical record, every research data, there is a person, a story, an experience and a future to be preserved.
Throughout this journey, Fondazione Ivo de Carneri has been by my side. The Foundation was not simply the place that hosted me during this internship, it was the reality that allowed me to experience Pemba, to get to know it, to work in the field and above all to feel part, even if only for a short period, of something bigger. Here I met people who every day transform public health into something concrete, people who believe in training, research, prevention and above all in communities. I learned that the Foundation is not in Pemba just to bring something, but to listen, build, train and collaborate with the local community.
A month ago, when I arrived, I thought my goal was to collect data and research; now I think that the most important piece of data I take away from Pemba is another: it is the people I met, my patients, my doctor and nurse friends, the people of the Foundation, the smiles, the difficulties, the conversations, the days spent in the hospital, the roads travelled, the stories heard. In a few days I will leave Pemba, but a part of this island will stay with me: because there are experiences that end when you take a plane and others that, instead, begin right when you return home.
Thank you Pemba, thank you to all the people I met and, above all, thank you to the Ivo de Carneri Foundation, for giving me the opportunity not simply to come here… but to experience all this”.