I am writing this on Saturday morning. Today is Parliamentary election day. I am going to stay in the compound. I will write info on how they are trying have their first free and fair election later. It is 9 AM and 93F in the house.(Update: Midnight. I ran out of battery this morning. Power is back on so I am now finishing. Elections were called off and re-secheduled for Monday. This is a big problem because it is a work day. They had all the election material printed out of the country so it could not be counterfeited before the election. It did not all arrive.)
Wednesday was a day of travel. The Global Health Ministry (GHM) team was going to the Shall-homa Diocese Secretariat in Gombi and then further north to Garkida, where the EYN (Church of the Brethren Nigeria) has their Integrated Community Based Development Program .I invited myself along. Gambo a driver from LCCN HQ was driving in the Water Department’s Toyota Hilux that Yakubu usually uses. He is staying back today to work on reports. Like many of us he likes getting things done but does not like the paperwork. This is a small pick-up that had been sitting at Numan, LCCN HQ for many years. GHM paid to have it towed to Yola and repaired. It is a 4 wheeled drive diesel powered with a 70 liter spare fuel tank in the bed,a tow hitch, and a front winch. It has a/c but the a/c stopped working on Tuesday. I was hoping a wire had come loose. But I discovered that the belt was missing. Fortunately, the A/C belt does not operate anything else.
Gambo was my main driver when I was here in 2008 visiting the six diocese. Then we were in a Lazarus Peugeot, (Peugeot 504 that has been risen from the dead many times.) We drove over to the Adip Hotel to pick up Teresa Obwata , a nurse from Kenya that is working as a consultant to GHM here and in the Central African Republic. Next we drove to pickup Dr. Martin Bimba. Dr. Bimba is the Chairman of the LCCN Medical Board, a mostly autonomous organization of the LCCN. Dr. Bimba is over 6 foot tall and insisted that I was bigger than him and I should have the front seat. Maybe he was thinking of waist size and not height or total weight. From Dr. Bimba’s home we drove over to Ambassador Juta’s house where Dr. Thompson, volunteer consultant to GM, is staying. After about 45 minutes of collecting everyone we headed across the Benue River and north about 65 miles to Gombi.
At the Shall-holma Secretariat building Dr. Thompson briefed Bishop Amos Tenterbiu, his staff, the Deans of the five Division on the Community Based public Health Program that the LCCN Medical Board and GHM are starting as a pilot program in two villages. One village, Dinga is in Shall-holma Diocese. Two people have been selected to be the village coordinator. They were sent to India for almost a month of training at the Jamkhed Project. Jamkhed project was started by a Christian couple who after graduating from medical school pledged their lives to working with the poor. Over the next 40 years they created the Jamkhed Project. They did not look at medicine as treating illness but worked with villages to create conditions that minimize illness. They did not limit themselves to just traditional medicine. They observed the relationship between poverty and health, Improved farming and health, water and health, sanitation and health, education and health. Almost every aspect of village life has an effect on the health of the village. They also recognized that improvements that are made by outsiders are not sustainable. That when these type of improvements break or have problems the villagers would look to the outsider to come back and fix it. They work with the people to find out what they think their problems are and what resources do they have to fix their own problem. The Jamkhed does not solve problems for people they empower people to solve their own problems.
After the meeting in the Bishop’s office we toured the Shall-holma Diocese Women to Women Bible School. The Women to Women Bible School had been envisions many years ago. The foundations and walls were built in 2006. About $45,000 is needed to finish the building. Instead waiting for the money to complete the building, they decided to start the school in two of the wings of the secretariat building. They have graduated on class and have the second in place. The women have five skill acquisition courses in Home Management, Tayloring and Fashion Design, Industrial Design (making soap, cosmetics, and candles), Knitting and Weaving, Computer, and Christian Womens Study (Theology, Math, English, Health, Adult Education, and Marketing) . The aim of the program is to teach the women the skills they need to start a home based business, grow the business and become and employer and teacher. The school also has a nursery/Primary School for the children of the women. The women come from near and far.
Intergrated Community Based Development of the EYN Church (Church of the Bretheran Nigeria)
After having a lunch at the Diocese we headed further north to Garkida where the EYN (Church of the Bretheran Nigeria) has their Intergrated Community Based Development Program. Their program has three departments, Rural Health, Community Development, and Rural Agriculture. We meet with the Balami Yakubu Emmanuel the Director of Rural Health. They currently have 20 health clinics and 35 health posts mostly in northern Adamawa State and Southern Borno State. The health clinics are staffed by 10 to 15 staff. Most are trained Community Health Workers or Community Health Officers. Since, they are not hospitals with doctors they cannot admit patients. They only have observation wards. Most clinics will have rooms for Mobilization, Dressing, Injection, Dispensary, Consulting, and Laboratory. Each clinic has one person that is the Health Post supervisor for the area. They visit each Health Post once per month. The clinics refer patients to the Comprehensive Health Centre at Kwarhi near Mubi or to the local government hospital.
The project sends out Community Development Officers to work in the communities. When they determine that a community is in need of a health post the work with the community to prepare them for a health post. The community creates a Village Health Committee with at least a Chairman, Secretary and Treasure. They build a health post building with a couple of rooms and they chose a man and a woman to become the Health Post Workers. The people selected must be married (I do not think to each other.), be able to read and write, and are committed to living in the village. The village will pay 4000 naira each for tuition; provide food for the people to fix their own meals and some pocket money. They have one class per year for health post workers with 20 to 24 students, lasting 3 months. Two months will be in the classroom followed by working at a clinic for a month. The class is held from January through March during the dry season when there is no farming activities. (In contrast the Jamkhed model will have the students come for a shorter period of training followed by time at home to practice what they have learned. The students will return for another short class and return home to practice. This continues until the full curriculum is taught.) The workers are paid by from the money they collect. Each patient that comes to the health post pays for a patient card and for the drugs that he needs for what is ailing him.
Thuy have a supervisor from the nearest Clinic come once per month to provide a higher level of care, collect the money, pay salary, and bring the drugs ordered the previous month. Annual refresher courses are also given. When asked their challenges they said having enough money for salary and maintenance of the buildings. They are funded by EED of Germany. While we were there they were going through their mid-term evaluation.
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