Sunday, April 6, 2014

Working Beach Corps

            Well it has been a little while since I have last updated you all, or even wrote a post! Sorry about that! Things here in Fiji are actually starting to pick up and I’m becoming
busy during the days, which is a very nice change.
            Since the last time I posted, I have been working on a variety of different projects, so I thought I would line them out for you all. 

I.               Improve the water – this project consisted of taking a survey of our current water sources and seeing how we can improve them. The health inspectors of Savusavu came out and assisted with the inspection and gave us some advice on ways we can improve them. One of the things that we have been thinking about is adding another water source to our village. We currently have two, and they dry up, get clogged, etc. every so often. This third water source is quite a distance away, and four councilmen and myself hiked to this source. Boy was it bush whacking to the extreme! A picture below can depict just a glimpse of how in the bush this place really was. 

The council men and I hiking to the new potential source
II.             Healthy Island Program – This project has become my main project and goal to complete. This is a program that the Ministry of Health (MOH) uses to encourage communities to be healthier. It has a step-by-step process to make sure that a community can be successful. I have completed the evaluation and compiling phases, and now am working with my village to develop an action plan on issues that should be addressed. The ultimate goal is establish healthy programs within the community and re-evaluate in a little over a year.
III.           Community Health Workers – The MOH has asked each village to have a Community Health Worker (CHW) because not every village has immediate access to a nursing station or health centre. These CHW assist their community by having knowledge of basic first aid, and basic medical care. They essentially are allowed to do bandages and hand out Advil. What I am doing is giving educational tools to my CHWs so that they have a deeper knowledge about a variety of health topics. I am also creating programs for them to do on their own that do not need the presence of a nurse, or myself. 

Teaching Fijian Hand Washing Song
IV.            Clean Kioa Island – Being on an outer island, rubbish (trash) becomes and issue almost every day. There are no dumps like there are in the states, which can become a problem! This project has had many steps, and began with just going around and picking up trash myself and inspecting homes of my village. While I did these inspections, I educated and suggested to people that they should have three bags in their kitchen; one for tins, one for plastics, and one for rubbish. I also gave them some information about different diseases that come from poor rubbish sanitation. It took many weeks for people to really start cleaning, but I am starting to see a great improvement in how peoples home look. The next step is creating pits for each district of the community so we can burn the rubbish. It’s not the best form of environmentally friendly cleaning, but there are limited options being on the outer islands. The tins we will bury and the plastics we will save and use for future projects to come.
Trying to get rid of the water inside the tires
Talking about Dengue Fever with the school kids


















V.              Dengue Free Kioa – Here in Fiji, Dengue Fever is at an all time high. A little bit about Dengue Fever can be found at this link ® (http://www.cdc.gov/dengue/) The mosquitoes that can carry Dengue Fever breed in fresh water pools. So anywhere where a fresh pool of water is present, those mosquitoes can lay their eggs there. The most common places are; coconut shells, water basins, bucket bathes, and tin cans. With the help of our regional Health Inspectors office, we initiated a Dengue Clean Up Campaign. This campaign consisted of us going from house to house and inspecting their yards and house for potential Dengue risk areas. We found a many around, but people are starting to clean up those areas and I have seen an improvement in the areas that were at risk. 
"Wash you hands before eat!"




VI. School Visit – Twice a year, the Ministry of Health sectors the primary and secondary schools that they are in charge of. The school health team consists of two nurses, a peer educator, dentists, a dental hygienist, a doctor, and a Peace Corps Volunteer if they have one. My district consists of 3 primary schools, two of the schools are Fijian and then one school is Tuvaluan. The school on my island speak very good English, where as the two other schools do not speak English very well at all. My job in the school visit was to teach proper hand washing. I first talked with the kids about why we wash our hands and all the facts about germs and such. I then showed them how germs spread by placing baby powder on their hands and having them shake each other’s hands. They were able to see the process of how quickly germs spread, and how if one person doesn’t wash their hands after going poop they are now covered in that persons poop. After we played the game, I taught them a song (one in English, one in Fijian) to remember when we wash our hands. They can sing this song two times through and it is about the 20 seconds that they need to wash their hands. It was by far my favorite part of my service thus far. Being around the kids was the first time that I was really able to be myself and just let myself be me. Being around the kids reminded me of HH and I just felt right in my element. I am now trying to get more involved in the school so that I can have this feeling more often.

It’s only been 5 months, but I do feel like I have been working and not just sitting around too much. Sitting around and doing nothing is not something that I do well, and I don’t plan on doing that! 
As per always - here are the links to the photos :-)  

Fetaui!

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