Moving at 100 MPH

Today was a very busy day. We had four different groups doing five different projects. Everyone - from the people helping to prepare food for the "Nutrition Program" (the program that delivers over 700 meals each day to people living in the extremest of the community poverty; the program is a "Meals on Wheels" model) to the people helping to construct a property wall around the volunteer house - arrived at lunch with glowing reports of their efforts.

This afternoon part of the group takes off for excursion trips to the Colca Valley and Machu Pichu, and part of the group starts the long trip home. It has been an amazing two weeks and the next couple of days are bound to go by in a whirlwind. I hope to post many photos of our work and our efforts in Lima and Arequipa over the next week. Stay tuned to the Blog Spot for daily updates.

Helping in a time of need

The Mission of Alto Cayma has been helping to bring food and clothing to over 700 families with "special needs." These families are literally living on less than $1.00 per day. They are the poorest of the Peruvian poor - and rely strongly on the advocacy and direct care from the Church and the work of the Mission.

One of the "special needs" families that we will be helping is in the form of remodeling a home. The home is in desperate need of a new floor and some simple upgrades to the modest area for cooking area.

As always - thank you so much for the support that you have given to the work of HBI. Please know that your donations are being well used.

Trip to Colca Canyon

Saturday brings with it a half-day of work and a plan for a majority of the team to take a 24-hour excursion trip to the Colca Canyon. The team will spend the morning split into activities; with most of the work focused on our construction related projects. At 1:30 pm a private van will pick up the 11-team members for a trip high into the Andes to one of the great wonders of the world.

Some of the team will be partcipating in the "Providers for the Underserved" meeting at Catholica University. In early 2009, HBI helped to start a focus group/club for medical students at Arequipa's prestigious Catholica University. The club provides an opportunity for students interested in working with poor and underserved communities to receive mentoring and support by faculty and outside facilitators who have dedicated their careers to working with undersered healthcare.

This morning, Dr. Bob Gehringer will be leading a group of 15 medical students (including 2 U.S. medical studnets placed in Alto Cayma by HBI) in a 5-hour training on basic CPR and pediatric approaches to CPR and advanced life-support. As the foundation of our working is helping to develop the next generation of providers and advocates for the underserved, HBI is excited to be a part of such an important project.

Water Filtration System

Our team has been really busy with the water filter unit placement at a local orphanage in Alto Cayma. They are hoping to be filtering potable water for the orphanage by departure time on Tuesday, 14 July.

Things are going GREAT!

Team Peru: Arequipa

The Team Peru crew is settled in to our new surroundings in Arequipa. This is a dramatic contrast to our previous week - where we suffered through cold showers and hectic days. In Arequipa, the team will be staying at the wonderful Casa de Margot Hotel and enjoying a schedule that is a lot less demanding.

Yesterday was our first full day of work with a number of different activities. We had a group working to complete the "re-assessment" phase of a previous community research project from 2008 (The PACE Study), a group working on the installation of a water filtration unit at an orphanage in Alto Cayma, a group helping with the daily operations of the Mission of Alto Cayma (working in the feeding program that delivers 650 meals each day to the most impoverished members of the community, making home visits with the Social Worker, helping with child care in the Day Care Center, and working in the "brick and mortar clinic") and a group working on a few special construction projects.

One project that HBI will be supporting, but due to time constraints unable to particpant directly with, is the remodeling of a "house" for a very impoverished family in Sector "11 de Mayo" in Alto Cayma. The family, a mother and her four children (the father left a long time ago), currently lives in a one room stone hut with no water, sewage disposal or electricity.

We will be working with Father Alex Busuttil and the Mission of Alto Cayma on a remodel of the home to include a small kitchen area, a concrete floor and an upgrade to the walls and roof to better protect the family from the cold winter nights of the southern Andes. In addition, the collaborative efforts of our two organizations will purchase beds for the family - as they are currently sleeping on mats on the floor.

Stay tuned to the HBI Blog for updates and photos of the remodel.

TEAM PERU: Week One

Team Peru – the end of week one. Wow, what an amazing campaign. With just over 5-days of clinic (we conducted a couple of impromptu clinics at night) we successfully provided medical, dental and opthmalogical care to just over 1000 patients.

What is particularly satisfying for the campaign this year is the number of Peruvian providers that joined our team and the “bridges” that we built to ensure follow care. This year our “Team Peru” group from North America was joined by 17 Peruvian physicians, dentists, nurses, and translators. It was a fantastic experience to have so many Peruvian participants.

Equally as important to the campaign this year was the “collaboration” that HBI entered into with the Clinical de Ojos Nahui to provide free surgeries to patients identified during the campaign with glaucoma, cataracts or operable ptyrigiums. Clinical Nahui agreed to waive their surgical charges and HBI is helping to provide the money to cover after care and medications.

A very generous donation from the Dunnellon Presbyterian Church in Dunnellon, Florida helped to make this after-care engagement possible. In addition to the surgeries, HBI will also be working to provide an after care “bridge” for children identified in the campaign with medical, dental or social care needs that require follow-up or longitudinal advocacy. HBI staff in Peru will be working with a number of different organizations and clinics to ensure that patients identified in the campaign requiring more advanced care – receive that care.

We arrived in Arequipa late this morning – and the team is really beat. It is amazing how much we have been on the go, go, go for the last week; and everyone is really feeling the strain of too many early mornings and very late nights.

Tonight – everyone will get as much rest as possible. The next week will be a different experience for the team – with a less frenetic pace. This week we will focus on completing a follow-up study on a cohort of pediatric patients identified in the Alto Cayma area as “underserved”, helping to install a water filtration unit in an orphanage, constructing a fence around the volunteer house at the Alto Cayma Mission, and delivering specialty healthcare services in the Alto Cayma Clinic through our volunteer acupuncturist and physical therapist.

We will be posting daily updates on our campaign and including photos of the team and our work. As always, thank you so much for your on-going support of HBI.

HBI and Univision Portland

HBI and Univision: With a base of operations for HBI in Portland, OR we are fortunate to a have a supportive Latin-American community. Our current ability to reach out to this burgeoning social structure has been at a snails pace thus far. However a few weeks back we received a fortuitous phone call from Roxy De la Torre el Rostro de Univision. Señorita de la Torre is the face of the nightly Latino news for the local Univision station. You may be familiar with the station as it is syndicated. You may have stopped on the channel to watch a minute of the constantly salsa dancing game shows or for the ever popular telenovelas, Spanish soap operas never lacking in machismo or melodrama. Srta. De la Torre contacted HBI for an interview as Univision Portland has a nightly segment called En Comunidad or In the Community. The gracious host’s connection with HBI is that she was born in Cusco, Peru and still has family living in Arequipa, Peru a city we spend several times a year in. She was excited to help make a Connection between our international outreach and the local Latino community. We saw this as an incredible opportunity to speak to a larger audience with a megaphone instead of a one on one conversation. A community we have yet to make a steadfast Connection with.

We prepared for the 3 minute segment ad nauseam with the expectation of time to discuss how the interview would play out, maybe an opportunity to have a second take, or read from a teleprompter. As is with our outreach trips we took a deep breath and uttered the words ‘be flexible’. Neither of us was overwhelmed by the studio lights, camera or action, yet somehow our gringo tongues were not nearly as silver as we expected. Nonetheless, post production of the piece faired on the gracious side, which if you would like to see, click on the link below. Follow the page half way down on the left side you will see a box labeled En Comunidad. On the right of the box you will find Health Bridges International, Inc.

We must give a great big thanks and abrazo to Señorita De la Torre for her effort and time. She is a social maven we hope to share a continued Connection with indefinitely.

Univision Link: http://kunptv.com/