The following entries are written by Jessie Stone during her visits to Uganda.
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January 2009
January 19,
2009 marked the three-year anniversary of the opening of the Allan
Stone Community Health Clinic (formerly known as the Soft Power Health
Clinic) here in Kyabirwa village. It is hard to believe that three
years have passed since we opened - the time has gone by so quickly.
And lots of changes and growth have happened with the clinic and our
health outreach programs. At the clinic, we have gone from seeing about
8-10 patients a day, to seeing anywhere from 20-40 patients a day.
Often these patients have traveled a long way to get to us. This is a
great compliment to us as the word has gotten to far away areas about
our services.
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| The Allan Stone Community Health Clinic celebrates its 3-year anniversary! |
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In addition to providing primary and preventative healthcare, we offer
family planning, immunizations, and sell mosquito nets as well from the
clinic. Since January 2009, we have been conducting a dental clinic
with local dentist Dr. Paul once a week. Dentistry is practically
absent in Uganda and you can easily see that. I think Dr. Paul knows
all the dentists in Uganda. It's a very small club.
A large
focus of energy remains educating our patients about their health and
bodies so that they can take better care of themselves and their
families on the prevention end. Routine questions for all our patients
are if they know how they get malaria and if they sleep under a net
every night. Additionally, we offer family planning and vaccinations
for free to anyone who wants or needs them. We want people to make
educated decisions about their health and share that knowledge with
their family and friends.
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| Continuing to educate on malaria prevention |
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Another great treat this winter was having Polly Green, the maker of
Nomads, come back to Uganda to visit and follow up with her filming.
She will be making Nomads, the next generation, this Spring. We eagerly
await her next film. Polly was able to capture many of the new areas
that Soft Power Health has expanded into.
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| Polly Green filming Nomads, the next generation. |
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| Lights, camera, action! |
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One of those areas
is with what we call field patients. These are patients with complex
medical problems that need more sophisticated medical help than we can
offer at the clinic. We partner with the International Hospital in
Kampala and several other organizations to treat various patients that
have different types of cancer, chronic infections, and genetic
diseases to get them the care they need and would never otherwise have
access to. More often than not, this has proved to be lifesaving for
these patients. This has provided us with a very interesting and direct
link into community health problems that are severe and often not seen.
Just recently, we were able to link a cleft palate baby with a surgery
program in Kampala that completely fixed this defect. Now, this baby
that was formerly thought by the community to be cursed can grow up to
have a completely healthy and normal life.
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We continue to improve on our patient care and strive to provide the
best treatment in the sub-county for everyone. Every Friday, we offer
continuing medical education for our staff and encourage all of them to
participate actively. We cover topics related to what we see in the
clinic and their management such as lymphatic filaraisis, syphilis,
sickle cell anemia, and malaria. Running the clinic and interacting
with the community continue to be a fun and exciting challenge,
especially when we see patients coming from 2-4 hours away by car to
visit us as they have heard we provide such good care. The community at
large has been very grateful for our services, and it is wonderful that
we can provide a little help where there was none before.
We
have expanded our staff since opening to include one doctor, two
clinical officers, two registered nurse midwives, two laboratory
technicians, one nursing assistant, one cook and cleaner, and one handy
man. We also have grown our outreach programs. In our malaria program,
we have three full time educators and translators, along with a number
of part time staff, and in family planning we have four full time
outreach educators and administrators.
It has been really
wonderful to watch everything grow naturally and in accordance with
what's really needed here. We also have the incredible good fortune to
have Morgan Koons working full time in Uganda. Morgan has taken over
Annie's position and manages the day to day running of all our
programs. Morgan is smart, hard working, and very capable, and she is a
great kayaker too! Morgan volunteered with us last year for 6 months so
she had good prep for the job, and she has volunteered with our inner
city kids kayaking camps on the Rogue River in Oregon so she is
completing the Soft Power Health circle, which is really wonderful.
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| SPH's expanding staff. |
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After three years of trying, we finally did our first ever Soft Power Health rafting trip down the Nile. Morgan, medical student Ben, and I safety kayaked for the trip and everyone had a spectacular day on the mighty Nile. Our other volunteers, Kelly and John, and our DIG - development in gardening - partners joined in as well. This trip was a huge deal for many of our staff as there is a lot of mythology, not all of it good, surrounding the river - like many other things.
For those who did not grow up on the banks of the Nile, they have little interaction with the river and do not know how to swim. The river can seem like a scary and dangerous place. Luckily, curiosity and excitement won out and we had a great day on the river. It was very special to see local Ugandans enjoying the river as much as we muzungus do especially since so few actually get to make a voyage down. Everyone is asking when our next trip will be. We may have to do it sooner rather than later as the dam construction is coming along very quickly.
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| On the Nile |
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| We came, we saw, we had fun! |
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December 2007
Being back in Uganda is
wonderful after a long time away. There sure is lots going on. We have
4 long-term volunteers, three of whom are paddlers - Morgan, Anna, and
Annie. Morgan has volunteered with our inner city kids camp on the
Rogue River and paddled on the Nile before. Our fourth volunteer,
Shannon, has worked for the UN and wants to learn to kayak, which is
great. We also have a returning volunteer, Juerg Ruf, from Switzerland
who has been a Mr. fix it for the clinic, which we desperately need.
It's great to have so much enthusiastic good help with our project.
After
doing a number of net sales and family planning sessions in Jinja and
Kamuli districts, we headed back to Bwindi in southwestern Uganda. We
had been working with the Bahoma health center there to do malaria
education and nets sales for people surrounding the Bwindi Impenetrable
Forest, home to the largest population of Mountain gorillas in the
world. It has been very rewarding to contiue our work there and to
follow through on our promise to get nets to these people. Early
December also hosted the biggest social event of the year in Bujagali
Falls, the Nile Kayak Festival. The Nile Festival happened this year
over the weekend of December 1-3. The event included the freestyle
competition on Nile Special wave, the endurance race down 42 kilometers
of river and the Silver Back Boda- Boda race. This year saw the largest
turnout of paddlers from around the world thus far. Perhaps the ongoing
construction of the dam at silver back explained everyones excitement
to participate. Thanks to the Queen of England's visit to Uganda just
prior to the event, there was high water. Nile Special was a perfect
level for the competition and many talented paddlers showed their
stuff. In the end, Sam Ward and Steve Fisher were in a close duel for
men's freestyle winner with the Judges having trouble deciding who
would win. On the women's side, Michele Basso took first, Morgan Koons
was second, and I was third.
The
endurance race was on one of the hottest days and the contestants had
to be fit and well hydrated or the failed to finish the race. Local
Woman paddler Prossy Moremba finished first with her partner and Local
mens team Ibra and Henry finished first. The boda boda race was also
close and luckily this year, the boda course was dry which added an
element of safety to the race. Ana Bruno finished first for the women
and Ibra finished first for the men. During the weekend and the awards
ceremony, much beer was consumed by all especially Nile Special. Next
year looks like it will be the last festival, as the dam at Silver Back
will be completed in 18 months, so start planning your trip to the Nile
now! If you have not been to this magical river, you are missing out.
You can always combine a paddling trip with your volunteer experience.
They compliment each other well.
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Soft Power Health Visits the Pygmies
On
December 7, we made our second Soft Power Health visit to Buhoma
Community Health Center. Last December, we began a collaborative
project on malaria education and prevention in communities surrounding
the Bwindi Impenetrable Forest with Buhoma Community Health Center
(BCHC). The demand for the education and nets far exceeded our
expectations and almost as soon as we left, we were asked to come back.
During the past year, the Ugandan Government began free distributions
of nets in certain communities around Uganda. Some of the villages
surrounding Buhoma received nets but they were targeted to children
under 1 year old and pregnant women, and as far as I know, there was no
education that went with these distributions.
Also
on our last visit, we visited a few Batwa homes and decided that there
would be a way to get nets and education to these people who live in
some of the worst poverty I have seen. If you are unfamiliar with the
Batwa, they are otherwise known as the Pygmies and once Bwindi
Impenetrable Forest was made a national park, the Pygmies were forced
to leave their homes in the park and began squatting outside in
surrounding communities. Needless to say, their culture and way of life
have been changed forever and their adaptation to an agricultural way
of life from hunter/gatherer existence has been hard on them.
This
year I was very excited to return not only because we had such a great
time last year, but also because we have our new super terrific nets
stronger, dark blue in color, and truly long lasting insecticide
treated! No trip to Buhoma would be complete with a small epic getting
there; it's really part of the fun! Last year, my clothes and wallet
were stolen on the way. This year, our roof rack broke. All nine
bundles of nets from our roof had to be packed inside our car and the
other one traveling with us. This left little room for us inside. And
this all happened in the dark! Luckily we made it, just a little later
than expected.
We had the returning
crew of Juerg, Francis, Joseph and myself coupled with new volunteers
Morgan, Anna, and my Mom, Clare. On Saturday morning, we awoke to
pouring rain, which continued for most of the day. We met Godfrey and
Vasta from BCHC, whom I had helped train last year to be malaria
outreach educators, and we set off to our first village about an hour
drive away.
Despite the rain, which
usually keeps everyone away, we had a good turn out for our first
session. Our audience included husbands, wives and children and one
drunken man that kept professing love to Morgan. The next day, we
organized an early morning forest walk for everyone so that they could
see the amazing forest that Bwindi is. Francis and Joseph were very
much hoping to see a Gorilla but enjoyed the hike to the waterfall
without seeing their desired beasties. That afternoon, we went to
Vasta's home village, which is right next to the Congo Border. We met
the villagers after church and we had a nice turnout. We had many
questions about our nets and why they were supposed to be so good. This
was a little strange to me because people don't usually ask those types
of questions. When it came time to sell the nets, we did not have many
takers. This was very surprising since demand in the past had been so
high. What we discovered was that this village was one targeted by the
governments free net distribution and they had just received free nets
in the last two months! It was a good learning experience for us, and
we will be sure to research more carefully which villages have received
recent donations.
On Monday, Juerg
and I visited the Gorillas and said goodbye to my Mom, Anna, and
Morgan. When we got back from an amazing sighting, we held an education
session and net sale in the Buhoma trading center. It was very well
attended, especially by men. Many good questions were asked and we sold
some nets. The Buhoma Park Rangers and others who work with them also
had contacted us. All of them wanted nets, so we ended up doing a very
impromptu net sale for them. We learned that the nearest place to get
nets was in Butogota, 17 kilometers away. These rangers were very
grateful for our services.
Finally
on Tuesday, we had an incredibly busy day with three malaria education
sessions and net sales scheduled. I was really excited because we were
finally beginning our plan of working with the Batwa that Paul and I
had discussed a year earlier. Levy, who is the Batwa coordinator for
BCHC, was an incredible help. He brought Kenneth, a Mutwa himself who
studies in Kampala and Christine, a nurse from BCHC. Our first visit to
the Batwa settlement was amazing. The homes these people live in are so
tiny and very flimsy looking. The first home we saw had 7 people living
in it, and one of our double mosquito nets would have covered the whole
house! We brought single nets for these families so that the nets could
hang over their sleeping areas without interfering with the cooking
that they do in their houses.
Our
first session was very well attended. People asked good questions and
we exchanged nets for jewelery, carvings, or money. Juerg hung up a
net in one woman's house so that the community could see how it was
done. Everyone seemed to be very happy for our services and Juerg even
did a little dance for the people before we left which inspired lots of
laughing and clapping.
The next
village we visited was a mixed Batwa and Bukiga village. We had a large
crowd, but our teaching was interrupted by a sudden and severe storm.
Everyone ran for cover under a tea shed. Once the worst part of the
storm passed, we picked up where we left off and finished. We had many
questions and then a bit of chaos when the net selling began. As the
Batwa were exchanging things for nets, the other villagers wanted to
partake and all of a sudden we had people who wanted to exchange
tomatoes, rice, sugar cane, eggs, you name it for nets. Everyone was
very good spirited about the whole thing and everyone who wanted nets
got them. We left with a car full of Matoke, chickens, pumpkin,
jewelry, and spears.
Our final stop
was in Butogota. We again got a large crowd and sold out of all our
nets. By the time we headed back, everyone was happy with a full
day’s work well done. Godfrey, Vasta, Levy, and Christine will be
keeping us up to date on how the follow-ups go as well as forthcoming
net sales. We are really looking forward to our next visit to Buhoma.
Its great to see what collaboration can produce. Thanks to Paul, Vicky,
and Scott for hosting us, and thanks to Vasta, Godfrey, Levy and
Christine for continuing the good work.
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May - July 2006
Its hard to believe we are into our 7th month of 2006. I love the summer and am really looking forward to our upcoming inner city kids kayaking camp beginning on July 21st in New York City. This will be our 5th year of
doing the camp with kids from the Bronx and Harlem, and it is always
great fun for the kids and instructors alike. It's also wonderful to
meet new faces and see the returning students. But before I get ahead of myself here, let me fill you in on what's been going on in deepest darkest Uganda!!
We have been busy selling mozzie nets and educating lots of Ugandans
about Malaria. Our total nets sold is now up to 11,000 and the demand
appears to be insatiable. My last trip was very productive but as
always too short. This time we had planned 4 Malaria education and
prevention sessions in rural villages anywhere from 2 hours away from
our base in Bujagali Falls to 15 minutes away, by car that is!
We were collaborating with the Mulago Hospital/ UCSF Malaria research
program run by Dr. Sarah Staedke who is a Malaria rock star. She has
published some of the most important research on Malaria treatment to
date and she also happens to be a kayaker! She learned on the Nile. Our
link with her project will help them connect with the rural Ugandans
that we see everyday. We had a very busy 3 days and accomplished a lot.
We sold 700 hundred mozzie nets in three days and the most
common question we were asked was "When are you coming back with more
nets??" Of course that makes me very happy because I know we are
directly addressing a real need and having a positive impact on
people's lives.
In addition, I attended a very interesting Malaria conference in
Kampala (Uganda's capital) on Malaria in Uganda. I learned so much
about what is being done now and what can be done and what is not being
done to control Malaria in Uganda. What continues to amaze me is how
little education is talked about at these conferences. It seems so
obvious to me because its what I do everyday, but many of the
intelligentsia overlook it or perhaps take it for granted that People
understand the basics of Malaria, like how they get it and how they can
protect themselves, but I am here to tell you and I hope Bill Gates is
listening or reading this somehow, that most Ugandans DO NOT know how
they get Malaria so they do not know why or how to use a mosquito net!
This is no joke. However, I am really encouraged because we have a
model that works and I believe we can expand the model and get nets and
education to those Ugandans who need them. It may take a while but I believe we can do it. Ok can you tell I think about this a lot?
The third arm of our program, the Soft Power Health Clinic, is
doing very well. Since our opening in January of this year in the
Kyabirwa village next to Bujalglai Falls, we have seen a huge rise in
patient visits to the clinic and we continue to offer more services to
the rural community such as vaccinations and family planning. We see an
average of 20 patients a day and the numbers are on the rise. We have
volunteers working with our local staff of 1 doctor, 2 nurses, and 2
laboratory technicians. Malaria is the most common disease we see
accounting for about 80% of visits to the clinic. We also see a lot of
upper respiratory tract infections and diarrhea.
The local community seems to be very grateful for our help and we have
been asked to build clinics in several other villages around the
district.
Which brings me to the next thing, keeping the balance in life - Kayaking! I had the good fortune to compete in Vail, Lyon, and
Bremgarten and attend the Telluride Mountain Film Festival where my
friend Polly Green was premiering her film Nomads. If you are
interested in checking out the film, there are going to be more
screenings of it and it is for sale on the Jackson Kayak website. It
was also really nice to spend some time traveling and paddling with the
Jacksons and the Lunts. I felt like I was on summer vacation!
After Telluride, I went to Vail, CO in early June to compete and
see if I had a shot at winning the Everest Award in kayaking. Although
I did not win the Everest Award for kayaking, I took third in the Big
Trick Competition. Then, I went to the Lyon "Hawaii Sur Rhone" Festival
run by my friend Toon from Kayak Session magazine which was great fun
and wonderful to be in Europe for Spring water. The wave was great and
I did feel like I was back on the big water of the Nile. I finished the
competition tour with a trip to The Quicksilver Waves and Wheels
Festival in Bremgarten, Switzerland where I finished fourth in the
Boater Cross, a new and very fun event for me. In the finals, where 4
paddlers start at the same time off a ramp into the river, I had a
laugh to myself because there I was the oldest woman competitor at 38 competing against
my fellow Nomad and youngest pro woman paddler at 16, Emily. Kayaking
is such a fabulous sport for that reason, I tell you and I hope I get
to do it as long as I can. All of this was great, and I was also lucky enough to paddle almost
everyday that I was back in Uganda too! Carving out the time to kayak
really energizes me for everything else I do and continues to make me
realize how lucky I am everyday!
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December 2005
Things are moving right along! The demand for mosquito nets is growing and I hope that we can continue to meet that need! We
are off to a good start as we took delivery of 1000 mosquito nets this
past week and have set up four Malaria education sessions and net sales
for this coming week with many more in the works. Jessica Mugerwa our
local Malaria educator did a great job of following up on most of our
previously sold nets over the summer with various volunteers. It is
very encouraging to know that the nets are hanging and helping people
stay healthy and saving lives! Storing 1000 nets is also a challenge
but thanks to Chris and Georgie from Soft Power Education, they have
donated their garage space for net storage. In addition, we are storing
nets at the clinic and in my banda! It certainly is cozy, me, the nets,
and all my kayaking gear!
The clinic is looking great too. We are
painting it yellow and planting a garden around the outside. Our water
tank and plumbing system is complete and the solar power should be
installed by the end of next week , just in time for the district
health inspector to come and say that we are OK to function as a
clinic. In addition, I begin the interview process on Monday for a
doctor and nurse for the clinic, so everything is moving forward. We
will also have volunteers arriving shortly and I hope that proves an
interesting and benifical experience for all of us. The mighty Nile is
gorgeous as ever, a little lower than when I was last here but
absolutely magnificent. Features like 50/50 and surf city are in which
is great because we didn't see them at all last time and they are a
welcome relaxer at the end of a long day . In addition, Nile Special
has been primo. Lots of work to do and lots of good paddling to be done
too!
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