{"id":60,"date":"2019-07-17T18:17:49","date_gmt":"2019-07-17T18:17:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wcsu.wpengine.com\/news-archives\/2012tylerbalding\/"},"modified":"2019-07-17T18:17:49","modified_gmt":"2019-07-17T18:17:49","slug":"2012tylerbalding","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/news-archives\/2012tylerbalding\/","title":{"rendered":"2012 Tyler Balding"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When WCSU graduate Tyler Balding decided to move halfway across the world to help others live better, safer lives, he had no idea he would be delivering babies, assisting in medical procedures and burying people killed by their own government.<\/p>\n

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What Balding learned from his professors as an undergraduate studying political science is that becoming involved and taking chances are the only ways to make a difference in the world.<\/p>\n

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After earning a political science degree from Western in 2005 and a law degree in 2008, the New Milford native headed to Africa and is now the administrator for Mother of Mercy Hospital in Gidel, Sudan.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere\u2019s always a crisis mode and always somewhere you can help,\u201d he said. \u201cI try to figure out where I can be the most help.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Balding has been in the war-torn region for three years and recently returned to the States to drum up support and raise awareness that the people to whom he is dedicated are victim to unspeakable atrocities. The area \u2014 rich in gold and oil \u2014 is shelled on a regular basis. In a May visit to the United Nations, Balding and representatives from the Diocese of El Obeid pleaded for help in their goals to cease bombing, allow popular consultation and allow humanitarian access.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThey have stopped aid from getting in,\u201d Balding said about the local government. \u201cWe\u2019re doing it by our own means \u2014 in their eyes illegally. It\u2019s going to get worse and worse. They are bombing people into starvation. My job is to make people aware of what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

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As head of human resources for the hospital, he oversees 130 Sudanese and expatriate employees and supervises health programs. The 200-bed facility serves 30,000 outpatients annually and serves a region of 2 million people. <\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s the only hospital for an area about the size of South Carolina,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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Looking back on his experience at Western, Balding said he can\u2019t think of a better place to have developed the skills he uses now to help others.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhat\u2019s great about WCSU is you are really able to take initiative and use resources to do things that aren\u2019t an option at other universities,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

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Western, he said, was seen as a community school in the early 1990s, \u201cbut the faculty and administration enable student to make it more. Wise planning and investing in the infrastructure before the economic downturn was a boon to the university and the community. Western continued to grow when other schools were suffering. I got to see and benefit from the transition.\u201d<\/p>\n

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When WCSU graduate Tyler Balding decided to move halfway across the world to help others live better, safer lives, he had no idea he would be delivering babies, assisting in medical procedures and burying people killed …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-60","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/news-archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/60","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/news-archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/news-archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/news-archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/news-archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/news-archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/60\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wcsu.edu\/news-archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}