Gender Equality Liberia Project #13498

Restoring Healthcare to Women and Girls in Liberia

by Healthy Women, Healthy Liberia!

Project Report | Sep 2, 2013
Celebrating Our First Year in LIberia

By Nanci Cole | Project Leader

Days in Kakata start early for Dr. Chris, usually with a walk and quiet time about 5:30, followed by breakfast and devotions with the clinic team, then a training session for community volunteers and staff. As the team gets ready for the day inside, people are congregating in the yard, waiting for the clinic to open. Depending on how many people have gathered, the staff is flexible with some heading out to organize the crowd and others heading off to the communities scheduled for daily visits. Once Dr. Chris has seen every patient, she joins the teams in the field. Evenings are spent charting, supervising projects, documenting needs, planning projects, and participating in community activities. Days are long. Patients show up at all hours.

Since mid-July, Dr. Chris has been traveling in the U.S. visiting churches and other groups in 9 regions around the country, sharing the story of HWHL, identifying future mission teams, and raising support for the next year. Now that the clinical operations are running smoothly in Kakata, Dr. Chris has been able to focus attention on the expansion of non-medical “community support projects”.

Plans for the construction of the permanent Medical Center have been finalized and the road construction is nearing completion. The current construction estimate is just under $ 300,000. In keeping with our goal of establishing public/private partnerships, Margibi County Senator Cooper has pledged up to $50,000 in local government support.
When we purchased the land for the new clinic, Dr. Chris purchased adjacent property, where now 2 acres of peanuts have been planted. We are currently looking for someone to teach the girls how to process the peanuts and make peanut butter, which is popular in Liberia and a good source of protein. One of the groups we are meeting with started a factory providing "plumpy nut" peanut food supplements in Haiti.
Plans are underway for planting cassava and beans after the rainy season further expanding local jobs through farming and agriculture projects. There is also opportunity to open a small farm market.
Our Board President, Theo Kollie, is constructing a 2 story house on the adjacent property that will be made available as a Guest House for mission teams. We are finalizing Mission Team Guidelines and plan to host 4-6 teams in the coming year - construction, medical/dental, and teaching on specific topics.
With the donation of two sewing machines and space, the sewing project is up and running with 5 students being taught by a local tailor. The planned follow-on project will be for materials necessary to to make school uniforms and reduce the large number of children who cannot attend school because they can’t afford a required uniform. Donation of uniforms from the U.S. may also be a solution, allowing the sewing group to focus on other community needs.
Research is continuing for the soap-making project tied into the community training on sanitation.
Young men have expressed interest in learning skills, such as carpentry, construction, or IT. It is vitally important that these young men, many of whom were forced to become child soldiers during the war, become valued, contributing members of the community,as they begin to lead their own families.
There is also a great need for an after-school program to tutor reading and writing skills, since there were no schools operating during the war. Many parents are not able to help their children with school work.

With your fantastic support this year, we’ve been able to meet or exceed all of our operational objectives. We’d like to thank each and every one of your for your continuing generosity and your contributions through Global Giving.

Beginning in September you can become a project fundraiser for HWHL by creating your own fundraiser page and managing your own projects. Just let us know how you want to help, there is certainly plenty to do!

Links:

http://www.healthywomenliberia.org

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May 28, 2013
Global Giving Open Challenge Final Report

By Nanci Cole | Board Member - GlobalGiving Project Manager

It's rainy season - muddy - really, really muddy!

GlobalGiving Open Challenge Success

The GlobalGiving Open Challenge in April was our first attempt at online fundraising. Our goal was to just be successful - meet the challenge objectives. Through the support of 66 donors we raised $6165, exceeding the $5000 target. In fact in this one campaign we exceeded our total number of individual donors for the year 2012.

As you know one of our donors from St. Louis matched the first $5000, doubling what you contributed, bringing the total to $11,165. While we have promoted and advocated for our work in Liberia in the past, many board members and other volunteers had never used social media or asked friends and family directly for financial support for our work. It was a learning experience for all of us in many, many ways. Thank you for making our first campaign such a tremendous success.

Rainy Season Challenges

It’s rainy season now in Liberia, lasting from May until October. The unpaved roads turn into rivers of thick, sticky red mud. The car Dr. Chris drives can’t get to many of the villages where we work. Some villages are totally cut off. We are working with several churches and other groups in the US to raise money to purchase a high clearance 4X4 truck with a lockable shell. We are opening a new project at GlobalGiving to raise the funds needed to ship this new vehicle to Liberia in August.

In June a second project will be opened to fund the expansion of our program for health education. Last month information on how to identify and treat diabetes and high blood pressure was provided to 953 people. We also teach on nutrition and sanitation. In addition during April Dr. Chris treated 496 people in the villages, 112 in the clinic, and distributed worm medication to 2339. She also was invited to serve as one of 3 physicians in a clinic at the Healing Jesus Crusade held May 1^st and 2^nd in Kakata.

Update on Construction

After a meeting last month with Margibi County Senator Scott Cooper, agreement was reached for the construction of a new road to the land where we will construct the Kakata Acute Care Clinic and Health Education Center. We thought we might have to fund and manage the road construction project ourselves. Funding and project management by the county will be a blessing - one less thing for Dr. Chris to do. The road contractor has already been hired and project planning is underway. One of Dr. Chris’ long time supporters in Texas donated $20,000 last month and we have officially opened the capital project fund for construction of the new permanent clinic facility. We don’t have the final construction estimates yet, but the land has been purchased and we are well on our way to start work when the rainy season ends in October

A representative from New Life Church in Colorado Springs is traveling to Liberia in June to meet Dr Chris, to see the land and local operations, and to discuss possible future projects for church mission teams. Dr. Chris will be traveling in the US speaking at over 35 churches in 10 states later this summer. We expect several mission teams during the next dry season beginning in November. .

Thank you again for your continuing support.

Sincerely,

Nanci Cole

At least this truck has a chance!

Links:

President Ellen Sirleaf's endorsement

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Apr 22, 2013
Global Giving Open Challenge Update

By Nanci Cole | Open Challenge Project Leader

We are nearing our goals in the April Open Challenge. Thank you so much for your support. We wanted to let you know that one of our donors has come forward with an offer to match all Open Challenge donations 100%, so your donation in this campaign will be doubled in the near future. This has been our first online campaign and we are very pleased with the results. We have learned a lot and are looking forward to doing more online campaigns in the coming months. We also submitted a grant application to the Global Fund for Women to upgrade our education resources.

In March Dr. Chris and her team saw 522 patients, 129 in our free acute care clinic in Kakata and 393 more in 9 different village locations in Margibi County. Infections and malaria continue to be the most common reason people come to our clinic. In children after malaria, respiratory or ear infections, and then diarrhea are most common. Deworming medications are offered to every patient as part of our standard practice. Last month a complete review of all school resources were assessed and work in underway for health education program coordination.

Our adult health education programs are gaining in popularity with a focus primarily on basic first aid, nutrition and sanitation. Last month 599 people participated in community education programs. Dr. Chris has been invited to be on all three local radio stations, answering health questions and getting the word out about our work. The radio programs usually last for about an hour beginning with a short interview followed by call-in questions from listeners. About 99% of people get their news from the radio and this has been very effective for us, particularly in areas where the schools have not been rebuilt yet and illiteracy is still very high.

Thanks again for your support. Our next report will be at the end of this Challenge.

With continuing gratitude,

Links:

Visit our website

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