Health education in Tanzania’s Rift Valley
A team of volunteers, including doctors and nurses from Alberta and Ontario, traveled to Tanzania in October 2008, to work with local doctors in conducting health education and check-ups for children at primary schools and orphanages. Over 750 children had health examinations and learned about basic hygiene, hand-washing and teeth-brushing. A further 650 infants, preschoolers and adults were also part of the check-up and education clinic.
The hard-working team: Drs Glen Gould, Gulshan Lodhi, Shaw Deen and Violet Shad, and nurses Taryn Knowler, Niocle Entz and Donnita Deen. Also assisting: Dr. Mwashani (Tanzania) and visiting Dr. Richard Raker (New York); Mary Tidlund and volunteers Carolyn Lefebvre, Suzy Thompson and Joyce Middleton.
This project ran from November 19th to 30th 2006. We were based in Karatu, Tanzania and travelled about one hour each day to the Gaytighi School
where the clinic and health assessment stations were set up. Along with the clinic all of the children received health education in basic hygiene,
hand washing and teeth brushing. We examined 450 school children, some preschoolers and infants, and a number of adults from the community totaling
570 patients. Most of them were seeing the doctor for the first time ever! Many ailments were treated including ear and eye infections, parasites,
chest and throat infections, fungal infections, along with some more unusual cases.
India Howell who runs the Rift Valley Children’s Fund was one of the people we were lucky enough to have worked with, and helped to facilitate our clinic.
Our team of medical volunteers included Dr. Gulshan Lodhi from Kitchener, and nurses Taryn Knowler, Nicole Entz
and Bev Green from Calgary. Matt Palmer a film producer/director, foundation staff Carolyn Lefebvre, and Mary Tidlund
rounded out the team. Working with our medical crew were Dr. Frank Artress originally from Texas, but living in Tanzania, and Dr. Fredrick Mshana a local Tanzanian doctor.
Our days began and ended with the challenging road into Gaytighi, made even worse by heavy rains, but despite that our work continued (although getting
stuck did make several of our daily trips quite eventful.) Come lunchtime we were well fed with noon meals provided at the orphanage, a short walk from
the school through coffee plantations and a small village.
Communication was a great challenge, and despite our well-intentioned attempts at Swahili, we could not have had such a successful experience without
our great team of young translators. They included
Gabriel,
Moishe,
Edward,
Jonathan,
Agyle,
Sylvester,
Josephat and
Jackson.
We made many new friends, and all developed wonderful relationships with the children and parents we worked with. Thanks go out to our team of
volunteers from Canada, the many Tanzanian’s who pitched in to help us with everything from language problems to pushing us out of the mud, and
the families of Gulshan Lodhi and Yusef Mnyusiwalla who were wonderful hosts to us before and after the clinic.
Our 2006 Medical Program in Karatu, Tanzania, was documented by filmmaker Matt Palmer. Click here to watch and see how we run our medical programs.
