Fundraising

We are having a Fundraiser at the Bridgetown LaRosa's (6607 Glenway Ave.) on Tuesday, April 27th from 11am-10pm. You must present a flyer with your order in order for us to get 20%. Please email Jayne, Liz, or I for a flyer. We will be there during dinner. We are also having a pizza sale at Mount Saint Joe's on that day. Hope to see everyone there.

Thank you for all the support!

Burundi Update

On day six of our stay in Bujumbura we visited Hope Africa University. They currently just graduated their first class of nursing students in February 2010. They are also building an on site clinic where we will be working alongside their nursing students and nurses on our future immersion trip. The University has a radio station that is broad casted all throughout Bujumbura. We will be preparing health talks that will be translated into French, Kirundi, and Swahili and broad casted on the radio.


Day 7 We went to a village for international displaced persons. We distributed school supplies to the local school. There was a definite language barrier, but they enjoyed all the supplies we brought.

Sorry we have not posted in awhile. Currently we are working on getting the trip approved through the Mount and starting to set up fundraising events!

We will keep you posted.

Thank you!

Amanda

Notre Dame Orphanage

Yesterday we went to an orphanage about 15 minutes from where we are staying. We stopped on the way at a market to buy fresh fruits and veggies for the kids. We also distributed all of the scoool supplies that we collected. SHOING is sponsoring fresh fruits and veggies for the kids for an entire year. They were so happy to get the supplies. We have some more pictures on our snapfish account http://http://www5.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=759418027/a=1375718027/

Village Health Works Clinic

Yesterday we went to the Village Health Works in Bururi (about a 2 hour drive from Bujumbura). The VHW was founded in 2006 by a man named Deogratias, who is a native Burundian doctor, and the main character of the book Strength in what Remains by Tracy Kidder. The clinic has expanded to include in and outpatient facilities, malnutrition facility, pharmacy, technology center, and a demonstration garden. The garden is so important because the workers can show local Burundians what types of vegetables can grow in their climate. Currently, 65% of the children of Burundi are suffering from malnutrition as a result of consuming a nutrient poor diet. People consume cassava which is a tuber like veggie that provides no nutrients, but grows in abundance and is easy to prepare. VHW provides morenga, a nasty tasting herb that is dried and sprinkled over food, which provides all of the nutrients that the Burundian people are lacking. The morenga is given to treat malnutrition, and the seeds are given to the families to plant so that further occasions of malnutrition are avoided.

The clinic is very high up in the mountains with beautiful scenery. Even better than that, is the fact that the high altitude makes it so there are no mosquitos. The clinic provides food and housing for all volunteers and workers, which will come in handy for next years trip. The clinic has 1 Burundian doctor, 1 American doctor, 5 nurses (who are diagnosing and writing prescriptions, but are at the functional level of a Patient Care Assistant), and 2 translators. Also, the clinic is run entirely on US donations, and does not charge patients for consultations. However, if a patient is able to pay they are asked to (not always in money, but sometimes in livestock, supplies, or hours—once they are better). In the evenings, VHW provides English lessons for all of the doctors, nurses, and community members. This clinic would be great to go to next year. It is run entirely on solar power and produces most of the food that the patients eat (except for the rice). We were excited to hear the that they are starting construction on a new building which will serve as a maternal clinic for the Burundian people (hopefully it will be done by the time we come back next year!).

We were surprised when the Burundian Drummers came up the mountain to give us a private performance. To see the drummers and all other pictures that we took check out our snapfish page:

Thanks!

Liz, Jayne and Amanda

Click here to view photos

Clinic Visits

Today we visited the Clinton Health Access Initiative and Nurses Without Borders and got a lot of really great information. The primary need of the Burundian people is education. By working with both of these organizations, we can educate Burundian people and healthcare workers. One of the possible subjects that we can educate on is sexual/reproductive health to adolescents. We can educate the healthcare workers on proper hygiene and a proper diet, while they can teach us how to provide care in a resource poor setting.

Some pictures

Hi, rather than putting tons of pictures on the blog, we uploaded them onto snapfish. You can click the link below to see all of the pics
Click here to view photos

We're finally here!!

WE MADE IT! After a small flight delay in Washington D.C set us back a little bit, we made it to Bujumbura, Burundi at about 3:00pm Burundi time (about 8:00am Cincinnati time). We are still adjusting to the time changes, but slept most of the 28 hour flight. We had a delicious dinner provided by Tom and Jana, and enjoyed a leisurely swim. Tomorrow we are sight seeing, and Monday we are meeting with Nurses without Borders and a representative from the Clinton Foundation to discuss possible opportunities for next years trip. The internet is super slow, so we'll try to post some more pictures tomorrow

Thanks for all of the support

Jayne, Liz, and Amanda