I have started to read Rhidian
Brook’s excellent and insightful book, More Than The
Eyes Can See, which charts his families nine month journey visiting and
living with communities around the world who have been impacted by HIV/AIDS. It also highlights The Salvation
Army’s response to the pandemic in these communities. I have read this book
before, some time ago. Now it takes on new meaning as I am back in Africa and
have been fortunate to meet many of the people from Zambia (previously) and Kenya (now) whose work
and commitment are highlighted throughout the book. I also had the privilege of hosting the
author for a day or two during his visit to Chikankata.
When starting out on this
adventure Rhidian Brooks was given this advice;
“Go expecting to learn and you
will find the story”
Today we visited a community, expecting
to learn and we found a story. We started
off with a simple community conversation about community health issues at 10.00
with this group of people.
By 12 noon, the group had grown
to this group of people.
No prompting, no organising, no
cajoling – people had heard that there was a meeting about health and wanted to
come and tell their story. They trickled in until we had to re-arrange the seating. By the end of the gathering, we even had pupils from
the nearby schools, the headman and the Area Chief. This gave a strong message
in itself.
As we talked together, people told their stories;
- A women who died because she took ill during the night and could not travel
- A young child who had died of a snake bite and was too late in getting to the hospital
- A women who had lost her baby while delivering.
It was humbling and we were
getting the message. Then a member of the Salvation Army’s women’s group asked
if they could perform a sketch for us. It showed some of the ways they address
health issues in the communities around them but also highlights some the
issues they faced;
- · People attending witch doctors
- · Lack of understanding and knowledge in the community
- · Girls getting pregnant too early
- · The time wasted going to the nearest clinic
- · No medicine in the clinic
- Only a few people in the community trained in health issues and they were overstretched
- · Travel to clinics too expensive – too ill to walk
- · In some case people die before they get to a medical facility
 |
| The Witch Doctor |
They adapted the sketch to show
Heidie and I opening their new clinic at the end!!
Maiani, like so many other
places, has touched our hearts - mainly because the community has an energy and
resilience about it, as well as a commitment to each other. They are not just
looking for others to solve their problems or demanding money as the answer. They have
identified that their health is their issues and that they have strengths within
their community that they can utilise.
 |
| A Traditional Birth Attendant |
It was clear from the sketch and
the conversations that some of the main problems are malaria, HIV/AIDS, problems
with pregnancies, pneumonia and high infant mortality. These are basic primary
health care issues. I remember reading
somewhere (I think in a paper written by Dean and Eirwen Pallant) that a
primary health care approach, which integrates community health response at the
community level, can only improve health and save lives. It is much prevention
as it is cure. Well the community and SA Corps had clearly got that!
At present, people of this
particular area have to walk between 20-40km to reach the nearest Clinic. This
was a problem to them so they look for the solution from within. They had
arranged for some training of Traditional Birth Attendants (albeit only 12 to
serve a population of 12,000 people – although obviously only a percentage with
be child- bearing women), been liaising with their local Ministry of Health and
had set about building a clinic, right next to the local Corps - a Salvation Army
Clinic. However, during the (what had
now become a) meeting, the Corps Officer reminded us that this Clinic is not
being built by The Salvation Army for The Salvation Army. It is being built by
the community for the community and to the glory of God!
Initially, Heidie was asked to
visit and to see if we could assist in helping them develop, provide more training for the Birth
Attendants, assist in starting a Community Health Workers programme and perhaps
help to finish the Clinic Project. When we arrived last month (today was our
third visit) I was truly amazed to see how far things had gone and when you
consider this is a rural area, with people who struggle to make ends meet, this
is a remarkable achievement. We were
told how the droughts over the last year or two, had slowed down the project as
it had impacted on people’s economic situation.
We were motivated to help and will try and work with the community (and
the Ministry of Health) to see if we can complete and staff the Clinic. The community health initiatives, interventions and training are being planned to started straight away
There’s a long way to go but we are journeying together!
FOOTNOTE: Booth’s In Darkest England and the Way Out was, amongst other things, a written counter
response to the classic book of the time In
Darkest Africa (Henry Morton Stanley). As Brooks highlights, Booth was
trying to point out that you don’t have to go that far – to Africa – to find
the poverty and suffering when it is right here in your community!
