Health Project: Growth monitoring outreach
The anticipation’s been building for a new
outreach and we finally got one! It was time for a Safe Shimoni growth
monitoring outreach in Majengo and we had 4 eager volunteers and community and
health staff as our ammo. The objective
was to receive as many mothers and their children as we could to monitor the
growth as a means of keeping check on malnourishment numbers in the
village. At the same time we could keep
track of those that were not fully immunized with meningitis, polio, measles,
and TB and refer mothers to the public dispensary to ensure everyone received
what they were lacking. These are some
of the main aims of the Safe Shimoni CU and it was awesome to help them out
with it.
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| Health field staff Kopa with one of the children being monitored |
We reached our destination expecting to see
some of the community health workers setting up shop but we found only one who
was actually ready to give instructions and leave us to it. “Sawa”- OK, we got this! It was amazing to
see the volunteers step in on their delegated tasks and work through the stream
of mothers with their children. I can’t blame them, weighing babies is so much fun.
Some were weighing, others were recording the weight as well as personal details
such as age and gender. The rest were going through the health cards to check
the immunizations received and receiving money from the patients. Despite the
scorching heat they all pushed through and found a quick and efficient way to
accurately record all necessary details.
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| Volunteers record growth monitoring information |
The kids were so precious even the ones
that refused to step on the scale without their mothers. My favorite is the “pole... pole...
bas!”—sorry… sorry but enough when they refused to stop bawling. That cracks me
up every time. It’s said with so much sympathy yet no time for nonsense. One
girl came alone with her card and 10 shillings determined to get her card
filled out, too sweet. Overall it was
really successful we went through 37 kids; none of them were underweight and
only 5 were confirmed to not be fully immunized. Unfortunately day 2 of the outreach was
cancelled due to the torrential downpour but in typical Kenyan fashion… “Hakuna
Matata”- No problem. There will be more to come.
Matata
Diomande – Health Field Staff
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