CHILDREN OF AFRICA: THE MEDICAL DISPENSARY

Out of the brilliant ideas of Dr.Reyes from the Canary Islands, come the greatest project for Tsunza: the construction of a medical dispensary that would cover the health needs of many villagers. Once she found out that the life-span of people from Tsunza was very short (45), that many girls left school after getting pregnant and even have problems as they are not very educated in motherhood matters, and after getting information about the high rate of AIDS, Cholera, malaria, and other diseases, she could not avoid struggling for such a big dream to become a reality.

On the other hand, the nearest dispensary is kilometres away, and it even serves to more that 40,000 people. The Kinango district hospital, which is the only well equipped, is located almost 100 kilometres away from Tsunza. For this reason people die every year due to complications during birth, or from diseases produced by lack of education, medicine and hygiene.

As a first step, she will try to have acces to the social helps of Government , she will also be organising the Doctors workcamp, who will examine the possibility of such a project and will make big efforts to contact organisations like Farmamundi that would provide us with big quantities of medicine to be used by the centre.

This medical centre will be constructed on the lands that belong to the community (in the photo above), and although we will provide them with infrastructure, the community compromised to take part in the construction task and in the maintainance of the centre.

More information of the whole project will be provided soon. The approximate budget that we need to fundraise for this medical dispensary to be constructed is 123,000 euros.

The project will be developed in two different phases dues to the difficult task of gathering all the necessary funds. This summer a group of volunteers and two architects are travelling to Kenya in order to carry out the first part of the project: the foundations (budget: 15,200 Euros). We have already applied for different subventions in different institutions. Let's see if we are lucky.

If you want to see the full project, click here.

THE ESSENCE OF VOLUNTEERING

"Volunteering abroad is not an opportunity given to the rich and developed citizens of occidental countries in order to experience an extraoridinary adventure. In fact, I think it's unacceptable that we allow ourselves the luxury of dreaming about sensational experiences, while the people of the needy countries we want to visit can only allow themselves to dream of some piece of bread in their mouths.

A volunteer workcamp is not a selfish opportunity to satisfy our egos or our cravings for travelling; a volunteer workcamp is an opportunity that the volunteer himself provides in order to offer inconditional assistance and support, time, economic resources and efforts to the most needy ones; an opportunity to change a small, tiny piece of the world.

Therefore, a volunteer should never allow himself to become an extra burden for those he's trying to help. It would be simply nonsense. A volunteer must be a relief, water on top of fire, sugar on top of the bitterness that rules their lives, a streched hand, a balm for the open wounds, a whisper of peace...

Then, we cannot expect that a home, where we are planning to spend some time and where they already have problems enough to bring 50 children to school and provide them with food, water, clothes, etc., opens its doors for us only for love's sake, just becoming another mouth to feed. It is not the same being a volunteer in our own country or being a volunteer in a different continent in somebody else's home. Here, we can offer our time and efforts and later go back home where we are catered with everything. In Africa, to become an assistant requires something else.

When we arrive at an orphanage, we become part of it, another member, which means more food, more water, more electricity, more dirty clothes, more washing-up liquid, more bed covers, etc. It is clear that the romantic idea that Occidentals have of bringing our big love and tenderness to those people, of spending time by their side and exchanging our knowledge with them is highly praisable. But there is something that we should never forget: LOVE ON ITS OWN DOES NOT FEED CHILDREN.

I've been moving in and out of Kenya for almost four years now, living with those incredible peoples, and I swear that they really appreciate the time we spend with them, the moments we listen to their problems, the time we play with their children... But, no matter how strong you might me hugging them, if in that moment their stomachs are empty, and there is nothing to bring to their mouths, our big love will be vanished to ashes. And it is normal and understandable: human beings can only allow themselves the pleasure of loving and dreaming when the basic human needs are covered (drinking, eating and sleeping).

As a consequence, with my full belly, I allow myself a dream: to fill their bellies so that they can also dream. And among many others, the best ways to achieve such a dream are those where governments will never invest enough, building up strong and long-lasting infrastructures, with auto-sustainable projects which can bring them autonomy and better life standards and, ABOVE OF ALL, improving the whole institution of education by building up better schools, with better materials, improving teachers formation, and working on the basis of universal values and human rights.

Susanna

CHILDREN OF AFRICA

THE MEDICAL DISPENSARY

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