This poem was written and performed by Hannah Hasan for Build Healthy Places Network’s webinar, “Tackling Neighborhood Poverty to Improve Children’s Health: What role can doctors play in driving community investment?”

Watch The Performance:

Imagine A Child by Hannah Hasan for Build Healthy Places Network

Imagine a child

Safe at home

Chasing brother and sister around the living room

A child discussing the school day from the comfort of the dinner table

Lamenting about homework

Doing the average everyday things that a child might do

Imagine a child

Building a fort in the backyard with friends

Riding bikes down the tree-lined streets until the street lights come on

Playing baby dolls and hide and seek

A child laughing

Fanciful and free

Free to not worry about the troubles of home

Free to not carry the burden of increased rent

Of a pending eviction

Of elevated electricity costs

Of neighborhood crime rates rising

Of the possibility that big brother is going back into prison

Of food insecurity

And daily instability

All direct indicators of a life lived in an environment that has been controlled by broken systems.

Imagine a doctor

A physician

A medical professional

With an internal desire for different

With the understanding that while they might not have all of the answers

That a person like them can help to change these systems

That one intentional act of advocacy at a time

One step towards understanding how to use the resources within their reach

That one meaningful moment of partnership and collaboration

Can serve as the one beautiful thing that helps to meet the communities needs

That plants a seed

Of understanding

Imagine a network of healthcare providers

And healthcare systems

And those with the resources

Processing planning

And investing in neighborhoods and communities that can benefit from their intentional action

Imagine hospitals using their land to build homes affordable and accessible for those who need

it the most

Imagine

What might happen

To a child

For a child

Who exists in a community that has been planned for them

That has taken their holistic health into its hand

That gets that when the environment around them is safe and secure that that child has a

greater chance

At healing in difficult times

At being lifted up when they fall

At growing into a healthy, whole human being

At not even becoming sick at all

There are children born into our world every day

Inheriting problems that they did not create

And those problems might seem overwhelming

But they can still be prevented

Imagine a world where the cure

Points back to their beginning

Their home

Their neighborhood

The community that they live in

So imagine making this world

A bit easier for them

Giving them the chance to be healthy from the start

Imagine how your intentional act of involvement

Can open up doors for those who really need it

Imagine that world

And the beautifully impactful ways that you can play your part.

You catch the full recording of “Tackling Neighborhood Poverty to Improve Children’s Health: What role can doctors play in driving community investment?” here.