From Andean communities that hardly see a doctor to a farm that teaches Mexican school children about disabilities to public health campaigns in Belize, ProWorld’s health projects help communities throughout the year. Below are some of the projects volunteers can participate in.
Clinical Assistance Health Project
Work with public and private health institutions to improve the health of community members in the Sacred Valley and Cusco. Volunteers may opt to work with local hospitals and/or small local clinics. Volunteers working with local hospitals will serve the poor residents of communities by providing preventive health care and education, and offering free and low cost health services. Local doctors and nurses will assist volunteers in learning about the practice of medicine in resource-poor settings, as well as provide an invaluable perspective regarding the unique health care needs and concerns of the surrounding communities.
Public Health Education Project
Help community members of the Sacred Valley and Cusco improve their health and increase their knowledge of how to care for themselves. ProPeru staff and volunteers will work with the Department of Cusco to provide community members with access to qualified health care, preventative health care education, and training. Volunteers may also opt to work with the Casa Materna (birthing center) where they may educate expectant and new mothers regarding prenatal and infant health. Ultimately, it is the intention of ProPeru to establish health care initiatives which will enable community members to gain the knowledge and skills needed to promote the health of themselves, their families, and their community.
Public Health Investigation Project
Assist with ongoing research projects that seek to further understand the specific health care needs of communities within the Sacred Valley and Cusco. ProPeru staff and volunteers will work with health care professionals, local organizations, and community leaders in an effort to conduct scientifically sound and relevant research. Research projects seek to determine the prevalence of specific diseases, to elucidate risk factors for such cases, and to pinpoint possible areas for appropriate and effective intervention. Results from such research will be used to formulate and guide health education initiatives, as well as be prepared for publication in public health journals.
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PROJECT/INTERNSHIP REPORT
Michelle Vanselow
Internship dates: 06/01/2007-29/04/2007
Program focus: Health
Contacts: Project Coordinator – Lily Calderon 9609049
MINSA
Timeline:
January
Started working at the children’s health clinic in the hospital in Calca – weighed and measured the children, assessed their developmental progress, and helped the nurse fill out forms
Advertised for our first sexual health campaign in Huaran by going door to door and handing our flyers to the women in the community
Had our first health campaign in Huaran – an obstetrician provided free PAPs, we gave talks on STDs with the posters that we had prepared early in the month, and we gave results and treatment to the women that had received PAPs in September
Had our first health campaign in Pucamarca – an obstetrician provided free PAPs, we gave talks on STDs as well as hand-washing and teeth-brushing, and we handed out free toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, and towels to the people of the community
February
· Continued working at the children’s health clinic in the hospital in Calca
· Advertised for a health campaign in Chichubamba
· Had our first and only health campaign in Chichubamba – an obstetrician provided free PAPs, we gave talks on STDs and hygiene, and handed out toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, and towels to the people of the community
· Discussed with Lily that we wanted to expand the campaigns to include nutrition, parasites, TBC and anemia.
· Made all of the posters for the talks on nutrition, parasites, TBC, and anemia
· Had our second campaign in Huaran – we weighed and measured the children for under-nutrition and gave results and treatment of the PAPs to the women. We did not have time to give any talks
· Had our second campaign in Pucamarca – we gave results and treatment of the PAPs to the women, an obstetrician provided more PAPs to new women, we weighed and measured all of the children for under-nutrition, and gave a talk on STDs.
· Had our third campaign in Huaran – we tested the children for anemia and gave nutrition surveys. We did not have enough people come to give a talk.
· Had our third campaign in Pucamarca – we tested the children for anemia and gave nutrition surveys
· Had our fourth campaign in Huaran – we gave results and treatment of the PAPs to the women, and distributed cups to collect the children’s feces to test for parasites.
· Had our fourth campaign in Pucamarca – we gave results and treatment of the PAPs to the women, and distributed cups to collect the children’s feces.
March
Started volunteering at the obstetric clinic at the hospital in Calca – helped deliver two babies, gave birth control vaccinations, weighed and measured the mothers, wrote out prescriptions, and filled out paperwork
Made the database in excel of all of the information from all of the children and adults that we tested and treated in the campaigns in Huaran and Pucamarca
Had our fifth campaign in Huaran – we collected the cups with the children’s feces, and gave out cups to the adults to collect sputum for the TBC test
Had our fifth campaign in Pucamarca – we collected the cups with the children’s feces, and gave out cups to the adults to collect sputum for the TBC test
Had a meeting with Lily to discuss a better way of organizing the health campaigns and suggest adding a primary assessment piece such as a survey to find out what the communities actually know so that we can figure out the best way to educate them
Had our sixth campaign in Huaran – we collected the sputum samples and more of the feces samples
Had our sixth campaign in Pucamarca – we collected the sputum samples and more of the feces samples
Shadowed a physician one day at the clinic in Calca
Had our seventh campaign in Huaran – gave the results and treatment for anemia and parasites, and gave a talk on anemia and parasites
Had our seventh campaign in Pucamarca – gave results and treatment for PAPs, anemia and parasites, and gave a talk on nutrition, anemia and parasites
Had our eighth campaign in Huaran – gave results and treatment for parasites
Finished the frequency analysis on all of the data from Pucamarca and Huaran using the SPSS program
April
Continued working in the obstetric clinic at the hospital in Calca
Wrote the assessment survey
Showed the new volunteers everything that I have been working on the last three months and taught them how the new campaign program works
Had our first campaign in Sallco, a community near Calca – we gave free PAPs and gave the assessment surveys
Had our first campaign in Huaqqi, a community near Calca – we gave free PAPs and gave the assessment surveys
Had one last campaign in Pucamarca to change some of the medications that were wrongfully given by the nurse that had come with us to treat parasites, and to give more treatment to women who had received PAPs
Started on the manual for new volunteers – wrote all of the information that a new volunteer would need to know on nutrition, anemia, parasites, PAPs and the surveys to make the campaigns run more smoothly
Summary of the Project/Roles of the Volunteer
There were two parts to the health project: working in a clinic in Calca and doing health campaigns in local communities.
Health clinic: I started out working in the children’s clinic for the first two months 1-2 days per week. My responsibilities included weighing and measuring the children, assessing their developmental process, and filling out paperwork. The nurse that I worked with most of the time was not really that friendly and because my Spanish wasn’t very good she brushed me off most of the time. The longer I worked there the more she warmed up to me, but it took a while. It was especially interesting for me to be in the children’s clinic because my background is in nutrition, and we came across a lot of patients that were under-nourished. In March, a started working in the obstetric clinic instead. Here my responsibilities included weighing and measuring the women, giving birth control vaccinations, filling out paperwork, giving the obstetrician an extra hand during deliveries of the babies, and learning about PAPs, STDs, fetal development, etc. I enjoyed working in the obstetric clinic much more than the children’s clinic. The obstetricians were really wonderful and very willing to teach and give me hands on experience. They really acted like they enjoyed having me there as well and did not act like I was a burden, which is what I felt in the children’s clinic.
Health Campaigns: The health campaigns began as just sexual health campaigns. We provided PAPs and gave charlas on the most prevalent STDs. I prepared for the charlas by researching the STDs and then helped make posters with pictures to describe the different STDs. In February we decided to start adding other components to the campaigns such as hygiene, nutrition, parasites, anemia, and TBC. For all of these different topics I helped research and make posters on relevant information to provide in the charlas. We also began testing and treating parasites and anemia. Unfortunately after doing the testing for TBC we found out that multiple samples were needed so we decided to drop this topic from the campaigns. I entered all of the information from the campaigns into a database in excel. This was a major accomplishment that has really been a huge help in keeping everything organized and making information very easy to find and analyze. After finishing the campaigns I did some frequency analysis using the SPSS computer software. It took about 2 months to finish the campaigns in Pucamarca and Huaran because we kept adding new things and people kept coming back asking for examinations that we done earlier in the month and we would provide them. We also made an assessment survey to provide information to the volunteers on what the knowledge base is in the community and what types of things would be good to focus more on. I have organized all of the testing, treatment, charlas and analysis into a 5 week campaign that can be brought into the surrounding communities. I have also started a manual to be used by future volunteers with all of the information about each of the different topics along with some examples on ways to organize the campaigns.
Vision/Future:
In the future, volunteers would continue providing health campaigns to the local communities, hopefully using the model that I have set up. From there, I hope that they just continue to build on the campaigns and make them better and better. Ideally, I would like these campaigns to be handed down from volunteer to volunteer so that they no longer need to be started from scratch. This is where the manual may be helpful. I think that it will be a very useful resource for new volunteers to learn very quickly what to do during the campaigns and what resources are available to them.
Suggestions for Project Sustainability:
The most obvious way for project sustainability is having overlap between the old volunteers and new volunteers to that they can show them first hand what to do. The other thing is going to be the manual. That will provide all of the necessary information to run a very successful campaign.
Some suggestions for future volunteers:
-laminate all of the posters
-make an AIDS/HIV poster
-make a STD prevention poster outlining: Abstinence, Being Faithful, and
Condom use (ABCs).
-make educational coloring sheets for kids to color while they are waiting during the campaigns. For example: a nutrition one with different types of fruits and vegetables
-continue adding new information to the database
