Rotary International featured Team Agape - NLM on the web! Click here to read the full article.
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In July 2016, Team Agape-NLM will launch a public health project targeting at-risk Masai communities in a desolate region of southwest Kenya. Access to healthcare is a major issue in the region, and studies conducted by the African Medical Research and Education Foundation conclude that there is just one medical doctor for every 24,000 patients in the region. Preventing diseases and infections and supporting maternal care is the focus of the mobile health clinic initiative that will be a pilot project through the end of 2020. Health, hygiene and education are the core of Team Agape-New Life Mission initiatives. Check out the project proposal for more information:
The 2015-2016 Rotary Report is now available! To see all the projects that Team Agape - New Life Mission has sponsored in partnership with the Sumner Rotary Club of Washington State, download the file below. The work that Team Agape - New Life Mission has been able to support is only made possible by generous individuals and organizations. There are numerous ways to get involved in upcoming projects for 2016-2017, so please consider investing in our cause! You can learn more by following this link to the Team Agape NLM website.
In seven hours, we can fly from London Heathrow to Boston, complete a workday excluding lunch break, or get a full night rest. Or, we could spend an entire evening in the car driving over thousands of potholes and sharp rocks, getting stuck in mud fuming with toxic poignancy, and arrive home with a pounding headache more frustrated than a one legged cat in a sandbox. This is development work at its finest. In the past week alone, we have spent over 20 hours riding in a rundown van to get places that would take three hours (max) on the highways of Montana. One 25 mile drive lasted over five hours. If roads were actually built or maintained by the money allocated to them, transportation access in Kenya could virtually eliminate cholera, typhoid, polio, tuberculosis, death from child birth, and hundreds more basic and preventable health issues. It is a frustrating reality for Westerners like us, but it is completely normal and tolerated here. What’s wrong with this picture? A new project that we are exploring as we begin our journey to medicine revolves around healthcare access in rural areas. Magadi is a sub-county in Kajiado County in the southern part of Kenya. It is one of the most arid parts of the country and sparsely populated in contrast to other parts of Kajiado. There are 42 tribes in Kenya, and perhaps the most popular and well known in the western world is the Maasai. This tribe makes up most of the population in Magadi, and they are known for their nomadic culture, livestock, statuesque figures and colorful garb. Though many of the tribal traditions are preserved in this region, it is also one of the poorest in the country due to lack of economy and education. The need for basic and preventative healthcare was strikingly obvious in our two visits to Maasai bomas (small villages) just off the main road. Walking into the first village, four women met us skeptically at the entrance of the gate, woven with a vast array of thorny branches artfully arranged in a circle surrounding the boma. Jeremiah, the chief community health worker of Magadi, told them we were doctors exploring medical issues in the area. Though ‘doctors’ was a bit of a stretch, we went with the idea and sat with the women in their manyatta (mud hut). Looking around we noticed that the open fires inside had no ventilation outlet, and Jeremiah mentioned that education on respiratory problems is slowly changing the cultural traditions and architecture of Maasai manyattas. We were in a village just off the road where cars and medical workers are relatively accessible, and yet the improvements were still slow to take hold. We wondered what the manyatta structures look like a three-hour walk away where education is a rarity. Tuberculosis, glaucoma, and pneumonia are extremely common in these communities due to housing arrangements and living in such close proximity to livestock. Luckily, this boma was near a dispensary where treatment could be accessed; however, luck often runs out for other bomas, and blindness and death occur because of preventable and treatable conditions. Even in this boma, the village leader was suffering from the result of head trauma after he was attacked by thieves two months prior. Without the funds or transportation to seek higher medical care in Nairobi four hours away, his chance of recovery and his family’s ability to succeed without a leader were slim. Just down the road is another boma where Paul and his family reside. Paul wears many hats in his community – father, pastor of the local church, and caregiver to his 30-year-old son Emmanuel. As a child, Emmanuel began to show early signs of a disease that has been widely eradicated throughout most of the world. His body was withering, his muscles weak, and the medical advice he received offered a misdiagnosis for what was actually a severe case of Polio. By the time he was school-aged, he struggled to participate in education, and teachers discouraged him from continuing – he was too crippled, too weak, and too hard to teach.
Kenya is in a unique position to capitalize on the opportunity to make large strides toward stronger communities with better health. Nairobi is an international trade center with a thriving economy and modern resources. There are aspects of the culture that are progressive – cell phones and Facebook reach even the most remote parts of the country. However, the basics like infrastructure and paved roads are making it extremely difficult to make progress toward healthcare access for all citizens. Basic sanitation guidelines like hand washing are hard to implement in schools; clean water is still lacking for thousands of people; and the towns neighboring Nairobi continue to dispose of waste on the streets, indiscriminately burning trash to rid the city of piles of build up. The desire to attain the flashy qualities of the western world while paying little attention to basic civil responsibilities is severely impacting health and other basic human rights. After 20 hours in the car, we were discouraged by the amount of need that could be addressed if there was just one road good enough to reach the suffering Emmanuels. Kenya absolutely has the resources to do it – sadly the political good will is lacking.
We believe healthcare is a fundamental human right. As future healthcare professionals, we will have the responsibility to make a way for opportunity to reach the bomas of Kenya, the American veteran community, and the wilderness and streets of the U.S. There is need all over the world. Perhaps the greatest lesson we have learned through international development work is that the many blessings we have received also carry the privilege of responsibility to promote and serve the rights of others. Disparity.
This word is defined by the economic condition of Kenya. The mission we serve within is an oasis, but there is a sea of sadness, misfortune, desperation and exhaustion just beyond the wall. In the past three weeks, we travelled to six unique cities in three very different parts of the world. To say the least, we were exhausted when we landed in Kenya last week, and the heat is not helping boost our lethargy.
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jamie & sarahWe have air in our lungs, spunk in our souls, a little bit of heaven wherever we go. Archives
July 2016
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