We are working on the health education as best as we can.
Olivia, a volunteer nurse from San Diego came in July. She has been doing well with the work. The two last weeks she had meetings with the Kekeli women, the first week 7 came, and this week 11 came. It seems Mawusi from Workpoe will not be able to continue, she is pregnant and has moved to the village of her husband. And Olivia has been away for weeks at some Catholic training, we are not too sure if she is coming back to Seva. Others are doing well. Juliana from SItorlokope delivered a healthy boy.
The women reported about all their activities, and all are really trying. I will try to compile their report and send you later sometime. Olviia has recorded all the details in the notebook. Last week Olivia gave them all the duties to give lectures to teach the others, and they performed it well. This was followed by a competition, the women divided themselves into two teams, one called New Life Team, and the other Alavanyo (it will be good!) team. The competition was hard fought by the Alavanya team triumphed with 31 points over New Life’s 30 ½ points. At last weeks meeting they requested to get a lantern, that would facilitate them teaching in the evenings, so we obliged and gave them each a kerosene lanterns and new stock of condoms, they are all doing a good job popularizing condoms.
The TBA’s (Traditional Birth Attendants) also came this week, all day Thursday they had meetings and class with Olivia who used the flip charts from the US to explain about the growth of the baby in the womb through the trimesters. They had many questions about miscarriages and other issues, and a new class for the TBA’s is scheduled for next week Friday. They received restock of cord clamps and next week they will get a rubber spread that can be easily cleaned that will be used during the deliveries.
Several of the women want to take initiative for building public toilets in their village. Some of the villages don’t have public toilets at all. We will think what we can do about this and the best way to approach it, but probably in 2008 we will start working on this important work. We just have to make sure to make the right approach. If we make it too easy it won’t be good, the communities will not maintain the cleanliness of the new toilets. So we will set certain conditions for each community to demonstrate their commitment and share the labour and perhaps the cost.
We have started preparing for the training of the second session of Kekeli women, the candidates will come from the Northern Zone of the Zongo Water project. Jennifer is the next volunteer, she is a public health graduate from Washington DC area and we are expecting her on September 9th. The Kekeli training session is scheduled to start on Tuesday the 18th of September.
Olivia has been doing the rounds of the churches talking about AIDS and HIV and has done teachings and checking about Blood Pressure in many communities. A lot of women over 30 has high blood pressure here.
The water project has problem with road construction bulldozers wrecking many pipes between Horkpoe and Agorve, so that three communities have been without water the last two weeks, hopefully within another week or two we will be able to resume service. We called the communities to come to work and dig and most of the digging and re-trenching is finished, I hope it will be completed by next Wednesday. The contractor is supposed to replace the pipes, we are pushing, and also requesting the local DCE (District Chief Executive) to put pressure as the contractor is working for the District.
For the next three days, we will have homeopathic medical camps, today Seva, tomorrow Dadogbe, and Tuesday Tedeafenui. Angie, an experienced homeopath from the UK is visiting and will be working with Emperor. The two villages are areas where we hope to do Kekeli training in 2008, if things well. We will also be checking blood pressure and do health education as the homeopathy is going on.
We are preparing more visual charts and laminate them. The women will use for teaching in the communities.
Just to keep in touch, hope to hear from you when you have the chance. Another volunteer for Seva is leaving on the 9th from Washington DC.
Brotherly yours
Dada Daneshananda
