August 2011

Pictured: August's Women's rights seminar at the Igoda Community Hall. The hall has been host to a bevy of events that have helped the community educate itself about the issues most important to them.

CHILDREN’S VILLAGE

Edison is a three-year-old child that came to the children’s village after Dr. Leena Pasanen discovered him on a village visit early this year. Edison was severely malnourished and was unable to walk even at the age of 3. Since arriving at the children’s village he has been completing exercises to help him develop and he has been wearing shoes that assist him in walking and standing. Today Edison is walking, running, and is getting stronger everyday. We are very excited about his progress, and feeling that his development will continue at a very encouraging rate. Edison will eventually return to his family when the doctors and local government both agree it is time to return.
Construction of House #2 (the fifth house) is continuing well. This month all plastering was completed and a lot of the carpentry work was finished. Doors, window shutters, cupboards, and most of the beds have all been completed. The next steps on this project are the floor, and the pebble dashing of the exterior. Our goal is to have this house completed by the end of next month. At that time we hope our proposal to a Dutch foundation will have been successful and we can immediately start work on the 6th and final house!
The garden at the children’s village is continuing really well, and has expanded to twice its size this year. Since it is dry season, the children currently enjoy fresh vegetables from the garden three times a week. Soon the children will have vegetables every day as garden expansion has taken place and a system installed whereby there will always be vegetables for the children each day. The caretakers of the garden are various members of the community found through the community outreach program. One is a Father of four children at the orphanage, another is a Mother who is having domestic difficulties in her home, and another is a woman from our chicken banda income-generating project. We are happy to find employment for these inspiring people, as well a source for good nutrition for the children here. This has turned into a very successful project all around.

COMMUNITY OUTREACH

Home Based Care

Volunteers Meredith Pinto and Justin Dominguez followed up this month with some of the home based care volunteers and visited them in their villages to see first hand the work they are doing. Meredith and Justin visited the villages of Ikanga, Kidete, and Ilasa. In those villages they visited the homes of the sickest patients that each of the home based care volunteers have been visiting. This will mean that upon Dr. Leena Pasanen’s next visit we will have a good idea about the types of patients she might see. All the volunteers are doing great job after their training, and it appears that overall health care in the area will be improved by this program.

HEALTH CARE

Mdabulo Care and Treatment Clinic

The CTC is running very smoothly these days with over 1000 patients regularly attending the ‘CTC days’ at the facility. The building functions each day, seeing patients on regular follow up twice a week. A great system is in place these days improving patient flow and making the facility run more efficiently. The CD4 machine is in regular-use and the lab attendant, Catherine Mbata, is doing a great job not just with the CD4 machine, but also with all lab testing at the entire hospital. Plans are to have the laboratory in the Care and Treatment Clinic act as the laboratory for the entire health facility. Catherine will help make this transition happen.

EDUCATION

Igoda Community Hall

This month Titus Nyunza and Treda Pius were at it again planning a great event at the Igoda Community Hall. The community hall hosted a women’s rights seminar this month that helped to educate women in the area about what they are entitled to in the village. The seminar also opened a valuable discussion in the village about how gender equality can be reached through cooperation and education. Men and women from the various surrounding villages attended the event that was hosted by our home-based care volunteers, and several other special guests. We are encouraged by the use of the Community Hall as an educational resource that the villages are using to educate themselves on topics that are pertinent to their everyday lives.

Submitted by Geoff Knight