HBI - Project Updates

Today wraps up a very busy week of meetings. In fact, I did not know that one could have so many meetings in such a focal period of time. From Monday to Saturday, the HBI team rushed and to and from over 20 meetings. It seemed that we spent most of our time in the car or flagging cabs.

I have now come to realize that one of the greatest impacts a person can make is through the simple act of conversation and discussion. The main objective of these meetings has been to solidify attendance for the HBI and Medical Ministry International (see: http://www.mmint.org/) collaborative Arequipa wide conference in January of 2009.

The city of Arequipa currently counts a population of over 1 million people. Many of its citizens live in abject poverty. There are a number of non-governmental organizations working in Arequipa to provide assistance to the underserved – yet, there is very little collaboration and communication between these organizations and agencies. The purpose of the First Annual “Connect” Conference is to convene social and healthcare service sector NGO’s toward the development of greater collaboration and coalition building.

The Primary Goal of the 2-day conference (19-20 January 2009) is to develop an ongoing forum for communication among Arequipa-wide healthcare and social service organizations that assist the poor, to cooperatively better serve patients and to work together to solve common problems. We have developed a questionnaire and distributed this material along with a formal invitation to over 50 non-governmental organizations, faith based agencies and private sector groups.

We will compile the responses from the questionnaires into a booklet that can be referenced for future collaboration and partnerships. HBI and MMI both recognize that the need of developing nations is far greater than any one resource to facilitate – and it is only through collaborations and partnerships that we can effectively address the growing and ever changing concerns of an underserved population.

In addition to planning for the Connect Conference, we have been really busy re-writing a grant Letter of Inquiry (LOI) that we hope to submit to a large foundation before the end of 2008. The grant application will allow for a major expansion of the feeding program in the Alto Cayma communities and work to integrate nutrition and food science education into the delivery of meals.

Little attention has been paid to the interrelatedness of malnutrition and a communities access to nutritional and life skills education. With many of the residents of the Alto Cayma communities coming to the urban region from rural parts of Peru – the level of functional literacy and life skills is quite low. The proposed project will integrate health, education and nutrition delivery systems into a single focused program.

Finally, our week consisted of meetings and planning session to prepare for another conference in April of 2009. HBI will be convening the Second Annual Alto Cayma Health Professions Conference and Training Symposium. The training symposium, facilitated through volunteer healthcare professionals (physician, nurses, dentists, and healthcare administrators) from the United States and Peru who have expertise in the subject matter they will be presenting, will be a two-day intensive experience with both didactic and hands-on training.

So ends a great week of planning, preparing and communicating about unique ways that HBI can help to “bridge” resources and solutions for the needs of our in-country partners in their on-going work to deliver care, advocacy, and hope to some of the poorest communities in the western hemisphere. Even though I am exhausted, I could not have asked for a more meaningful way to spend my time. Please stay tuned to the HBI BlogSpot – we will have updates on our full schedule of projects and programs for 2009.

Thank you for your support and on-going commitment to the people of Peru.