The mission of the sickle cell diagnostics team is to create a lateral flow device, similar to a pregnancy test, that can test for sickle cell anemia due to the high infant mortality in Sierra Leone. One example of how cultural issues can affect this project is the lack of education on the health condition. A majority of Sierra Leone is illiterate and does not know what sickle cell anemia so a very important factor that plays a role in the success of the project is the education of the locals. Our objective is to lower the infant rate by identifying sickle cell anemia in youths as soon as possible so they can receive the necessary treatment. Education will play a significant role in helping the locals recognize the symptoms of sickle cell anemia. It will also help convince the locals to follow through with using the test strip because without knowing the importance behind it, they might be opposed to doing it. Another example is communication because although English is the official language, it is not the most spoken one. Kiro is the national language and even though, it is mainly derived from English, there is still a language barrier. Learning the language or finding capable translators is important in promoting and spreading awareness of sickle cell anemia and the project. Miscommunication can easily happen with the language difference and can negatively impact the project through misinformation and mistranslations. One final example of a cultural issue that can impact the project is the price of the test strip. Sierra Leone remains one of the poorest countries in the world with widespread poverty. Making the test strip affordable will be very important in allowing more people to have access. Not only will education be a barrier in promoting the test strip to locals but so will the price of the test strip.

I think I have experienced all three of these social situations at home. My parents are immigrants from China so I am the first one in my family that graduated high school and attended college. Ever since I was in 5th grade, I have translated legal documents and bills that came in the mail for them. This really emphasized education and communication to me because these two factors play a big role in decision making of any kind. I would have to educate my parents on topics that they were unfamiliar with so they can try to come up with a decision. Additionally, some words were difficult to translate into Mandarin simply because they were complex words I was never taught. One time, a very formal government letter came in the mail and I had a very hard time translating it. It was very professional that talked about it can be appealed in court and such but at the time, it was very hard for me to understand and translate. Another time when I was younger, I had to join a three-way phone call with my mom and a worker to try and answer some income questions in order to qualify for food stamp. It was very difficult to understand how taxes work and then translating the questions. I was not able to translate well so they had to get a translator on the line. Looking back at it now, these were probably some of the first memories I had that made me realize how important communication and education were. My family was also low income so the prices of goods and services were also very important in decision making. We had to budget and wisely spend our money in order to make we did not overspend. It was not one specific experience but there were numerous times I wanted a specific fruit but looking at the price made me consider otherwise. Other times, I would try to find as many things that I wanted in the cheaper local grocery store so we would not have to spend more at big name brand stores. 

Cultural practices define a society and can closely bond people together. One example of cultural practices that can be leveraged to addressed community/ market problems is knowing which characteristics are very important to certain locations. Child mortality rates are very high in Sierra Leone, although they have a very high youth population, so a good way to promote our project would be talking about child healthcare and healthcare treatments. Sierra Leone is pretty far behind in terms of technology and healthcare so by comparing their current conditions to more developed countries, people might feel more motivated and interested in helping out the country. The people from the country will also want to be on the same par as higher developed countries. As a result, with better child healthcare and very affordable healthcare treatment through our project, these reasons can be used as incentives for our project. A third example unrelated to my project is seen in Chinese society. Chinese culture strongly values family and harmony and this can be seen on TV very often. Commercials frequently depict families together enjoying the product that is being promoted, which more convincingly persuades the audience to purchase something because it aligns with their values. Technically, something similar can be done in Sierra Leone but it would have to cater to their specific values as it differs by region.