Senegal bound again in February 2013

Senegal Bound 

Last night I read over our Senegal blog from 2011 and was reminded of how exciting it was to start another cohort of Senegalese young people on the path to becoming community health workers for their villages and be a critical part of improving the short and long term health of their neighbors.  This year (after taking a hiatus to avoid the somewhat fractious presidential election last February) we return to evaluate the 25 community health workers we trained  and find out how they are faring.  Evaluation has been complicated by the change in mission personnel over the past two years.  Paul and Kittie Messer left shortly after our last trip and there was over a year with no "missionaries" until the Gibsons arrived this past September.  In the meantime, our stalwart Dr. Bashir has left to pursue his dream of more education in the US and has been replaced by a new physician.  Christine Boissy, the current mission administrator, and District Superintendent Rev. Joe Bleck have tried to keep us in touch with what is happening but neither has detailed information about the Wellness program.  I decided that rather than trying to bring another US training team to Senegal it would help to evaluate the prior graduates and determine the desirability of training additional community health workers, reinforcing or augmenting the education of the existing CHWs or find another way to help the mission.

 

In a week Joanne Aggens (who was with us on four missions) and my husband Tom and I will join Rev. Tony Fuller and a small group from Wisconsin to  return to Senegal.  This will be our 7th trip since 2005.  During the first four years we did "clinics" with the energetic and irrepressible Dr. Bashir.  In 2010 we started the first class of community health training and felt it was so well received we trained another class in 2011.  Starting with basic hygiene and germ theory, we progressed rapidly through sanitation, nutrition  and social philosophy leaving Dr. Bashir, Valerie and Paulette to teach cardiopulmonary evaluation, first aid, CPR and basic emergency and obstetric  management.  The most important part of the early training was to teach their community basic public health.  We take sanitation and clean water for granted in the US but in rural Africa and many parts of urban Africa it is simply not provided by the government.  As a result, babies and children are stunted in growth and die due to acute and chronic infection and adults are seriously handicapped in their productivity.  Add to those problems poor nutrition, malaria, accidents, lack of obstetric care and family planning and you have a life expectancy of under 50 years.  Simple methods of hygiene, water purification, nutrition and waste management can be easily taught and make a huge difference.  Having a village health advocate who can triage problems and solve simple ones can dramatically reduce the need for emergency medical care in a country where it is not only unaffordable but unavailable as well.

I am excited and a little apprehensive about this trip.  How many community health workers are still participating?  Will the new doctor and mission personnel be interested in continuing the program?   Do the previously trained CHWs need additional training or a refresher course?  How can I continue to serve God and my friends in Senegal?  Come with us on this journey of discovery as we see what lies in store for us in sunny Senegal.