Community Health Worker Program

Dear GlobalGiving Friends and Supporters,

Happy New Year! It is my pleasure to bring you this latest update on our public health projects in Lobitos. It has been a busy final quarter of 2025, with progress on our community anaemia monitoring, dengue research, a brand new partnership, and more! And as always, our medical volunteer interns are continuing to assist and provide care to patients at our local medical post, right here in Lobitos. Last year, we provided a total of 215 medical consultations, and we aim for even more this year!

Anaemia monitoring program

As per our last report, our anaemia monitoring program continues in full force during September and October, with the assistance of three final-year medical students that joined the medical volunteer internship programme. Alongside a local paramedic and EcoSwell staff members, the group travelled around the community going from house to house to record haemoglobin levels, in total screening nearly 100 individuals in Lobitos and Primavera. 

Iron-deficiency anaemia is a widespread issue in Peru and disproportionately affects rural communities like ours, and our goal is to reduce the severity of co-morbidities that may result from the poor health outcomes associated with this condition, such as Covid, and in particularly dengue, which is very prevalent locally. Combined with our Community Health Worker initiative plus our distribution of fortified iron products, we are spearheading efforts to improve outcomes in our community. Moreover, In September, we distributed Globitos, a cereal fortified with iron that is manufactured by a local Peruvian non-profit, allowing families and households to easily increase their dietary iron intake and health fight anaemia, in addition to our longstanding distribution of Lucky Iron Life fortified products.

A vision clinic for the local community

In September, our medical volunteer interns held a public health workshop in a local kindergarten. This workshop was a targeted public health intervention to identify any loss of eyesight and other early-onset vision problems that might be present among young children in the local community. This is a particularly essential service in our hometown of Lobitos as there is currently no other provider of eyesight and vision care in the area. 

A brand new partnership!

Last month, we were delighted to announce a brand new partnership with the Centro de Salud Talara II, the main hospital in our nearest major city, which is also the provincial capital. This means that from now on, medical elective volunteers will be able to consult and treat patients there as well as at our local medical post. Additionally, we will also be extending our donations of medical equipment, medicine, and vaccinations to the hospital. This hospital is the main port-of-call for the healthcare needs of Talara’s population, which is nearing 100 000 people, and this figure does not include those who travel into the city from elsewhere in the province to seek medical care. We are delighted to see our public health programme continue to make such a huge impact not only to our local community, but to the wider region.

Presenting our ongoing dengue research project

We were delighted to see our brilliant public health ambassador Carmen Thompson Perea present our ongoing project researching the determinants of dengue incidence in the Piura region of Piura. We were invited by the Royal School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene to their Research in Progress Conference at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Dengue is endemic in our local community and is particularly affected by weather variables during El Nino years, which this research project hopes to further investigate. It was a great opportunity to receive feedback as we move this project forward, and we must extend a huge thank you to Carmen as well as our past research volunteer interns Ruairidh O’Reed-Embleton, Anson Kong, and Magnus Heien Haugstad for their work on this project.

Donations to our local medical post

Our longstanding partnership with the Lobitos Medical Post continues into 2026, and we were able to provide a donation of medical equipment just in time for the new year. This donation comprised 150 microwells for haemoglobin monitoring, 200 lancets for blood sampling, as well as 4 packs of latex gloves.

As we move into 2026, we are so proud to be able to continue to make a real difference to health outcomes in this tight-knit community and beyond, but none of it would be possible without your ongoing support. Thank you for helping us make a meaningful impact.

With gratitude,

Alejandro Pizarro