What Projects??

I gave a big presentation to the Health Committee at the municipal government recently, which was well received. It was the first step to getting a project launched in the community.

During my first 3-4 months in the community, my main job was to collect primary and secondary health data, in addition to building relationships with key influencers and getting a sense for what's working and what could be improved.  To collect primary data on the health needs of children under 3 years of age, a nurse from the health post and I trained 9 volunteer community health workers to conduct surveys.  They bravely went from house-to-house and asked invasive questions of 135 mothers with young children and collected a ton of first-hand information on hygiene, food preparation, illnesses and early childhood development.  There was another survey done for adolescents on the topics of sexual knowledge/behavior and pregnancy prevention. 

I combined the primary data with secondary statistics from the local census and from the health post to create an overall picture of the health needs of the community.  Here's a quick glimpse:

• 28% of children in my district are suffering from chronic malnutrition or are at high risk for malnutrition.
• 85% of children tested for parasites had them.  (This contributes to malnutrition because parasites steal nutrients before the body can absorb them).
• Respiratory illnesses are the most common maladies because most people cook over a campfire.
• 7 teen pregnancies were reported last year.

I had made some recommendations as part of my presentation for the types of projects that would address these health issues, which include:

1. Reducing respiratory illnesses by building improved cookstoves for people who cook over a campfire and get smoke filling their homes.
2. For the families selected to have new cookstoves (with fancy chimneys to filter smoke outside), they will be required to participate in an integrated health and hygeine program that addresses handwashing and clean preparation of meals, nutrition, treating parasites and avoiding diarrea diseases, brain stimulating activities to nuture infants, proper treatment and safekeeping of water, etc.
3. Reducing teen pregnancy by offering sex ed classes in the local high school, and training youth leaders to be peer educators.
4. Training parents to communicate better with their kids -- and we'll teach them the birds-n-the-bees, too. We are calling it "Parent School".

Plus, I included a project not related specifically to health issues, but focusing on childhood brain development in a response to requests from parents to teach their kids English.  I think that it is a complete waste of my time to teach kids English (that they will never use, so instead I want to get English language-learning books and dual-language books donated to the library. It would be really fun to host reading sessions each week to get kids involved in reading out loud and hearing stories read in both Spanish and English.

 

 

It looks like I have a lot of work on my hands, I feel like I need to get started on a timeline and documenting resources and responsibilities...sounds a lot like project management! I think that's the one huge benefit they will get from having me here -- is learning from my mad project management skillz. :-)

 

 

Here is a photo of the volunteer community health workers who conducted the surveys: