A couple of months ago, I came here to ask for your assistance in implementing a REACH Ghana project in Glefe, Ghana. Through the help of many of you, readers, friends, family and other REACH Ghana associates, we raised close to $4,000. The official tallies are yet to be made but I am here to give you thanks for your support and to give you an unofficial account of the difference your money made.
We arrived that morning to Glefe to a water body, whose banks were filled with filth, puddles with stagnant water and trash. It was readily apparent the community needed some sort of intervention and, at the Ghana Health outpost, people were trickling in for it.
Through the course of the day, we screened approximately 200-300 children, women (including nursing and pregnant mothers), and men for malnutrition, diabetes, high blood pressure and breast cancer. Once attendees passed through the screening process, they were transferred to a final station where they were counseled on healthy eating and lifestyles and where needed, given medication supplied by Cocoa Clinic for malaria.
At this station, one hundred insecticide-treated mosquito nets were distributed to nursing mothers and pregnant women in the hopes of decreasing the incidence of childhood malaria in those homes. Parallel to this, one hundred and seventy one children and elderly people were registered for the National Health Insurance Scheme allowing them access to free healthcare and some medications for a year. REACH capped off the day by donating weighing scales, an electronic sphygmomanometer and the canopy tent under which we held activities to the health outpost.
Moving forward, REACH has initiated work with the Member of Parliament for the area, and Zoomlion, a waste management company towards establishing a waste disposal system in the community. We will be commissioning studies of the project’s effectiveness in the coming months.
As the organization looks forward to another year full of ambitious projects like the HIV/AIDS Intervention and Clean Water for Life initiatives, I would like to thank all our sponsors and ask for your continued support in making a better Ghana a reality.
For pictures of the event and other REACH news, go here and here and become a fan on facebook.
Special thanks to Maame Sampah, REACH Ghana Executive Secretary, Marie-Stella Essilfie and William Okyere Frempong, Local Operations Directors of REACH Ghana, students of the University of Ghana Medical School, volunteering members of REACH Ghana, REACH Ghana Executive and Advisory Boards, Cocoa Clinic, Citi FM and the New Ghanaian Newspaper.
Prime
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This is the way I choose, the destiny I pursue
To help the unfit and the fit
To treat each according to his need
*************************************************
Showing posts with label screenathon. Show all posts
Showing posts with label screenathon. Show all posts
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Friday, November 26, 2010
Screenathon: REACH Ghana and Health Redistribution
Over the past year, I was involved in the founding and running of an organization, REACH Ghana, committed to improving the health-care system in Ghana and promoting equal access to quality health-care by all communities in the country. We work in partnership with stakeholders at improving health-care through sustainable projects while building local community capacity for long-term health maintenance. We need your help.
We are capping the year off with a Fundraising Screenathon at Glefe, Ghana, designed to bring together hundreds of volunteers for an extraordinary day of service and provision of health-care and health education services for this under-served community.
We are raising funds from individuals and corporate sponsors alike to spread the holiday cheer to these people and ask that you visit our webpage to donate. For less than $10, you could offer a family health insurance coverage for a year. For more on Glefe, the REACH Ghana Annual Screenathons and on REACH Ghana’s activities over the past year, please read on.
Glefe is a trading village which a University of Ghana Medical School study found has poor sanitation and high rates of malaria, gastrointestinal illnesses and other febrile diseases especially in the age-group 1-4yrs.
The Screenathon will thus provide essential education on disease prevention while testing for these and chronic problems like high blood pressure and diabetes. We will provide basic care at the event and transfer complex cases to the local health authorities ensuring care continuity. Depending on funding, we will register a limited number of inhabitants in the National Health Insurance Scheme.
REACH Ghana was founded by a group of young Ghanaians and is proudly advised by luminaries like Dr. Isabella Sagoe-Moses, National Child Health Coordinator at the Ghana Health Service, Dr. Paul Farmer, Professor of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School, and Dr. Andrew Arkutu, former Director of Country Support Team for Southern Africa of the United Nations Population Fund.
REACH Ghana has accomplished a lot in a short time viz a partnership with Kua, a US-based design brand committing a percentage of profits to REACH programs, and a Health Education Enhancement Initiative which has enabled shipment of medical education books from the US to Ghana.
In addition, REACH is in advanced stages of planning for an HIV/AIDS Intervention Project which will provide comprehensive HIV education, prevention and treatment services for young people on major university campuses and surrounding communities in Ghana. This effort meets an area of special need as it targets people between the ages of 18 and 35 who contribute almost 50% of new HIV infections in Ghana. As a first step, REACH Ghana placed HIV/AIDS awareness messages through innovative advertising on taxis in Accra earlier this year.
Finally, the Ghana based membership has been particularly active in our activities and are spearheading a project to address the high rates of HIV at Agomanya in the eastern region of Ghana through empowering women by facilitating access to foreign markets of the local bead-making community.
I encourage you to become a member of REACH Ghana by signing up here, and get involved in making a difference in Ghana.
Prime
*************************************************
This is the way I choose, the destiny I pursue
To help the unfit and the fit
To treat each according to his need
*************************************************
We are capping the year off with a Fundraising Screenathon at Glefe, Ghana, designed to bring together hundreds of volunteers for an extraordinary day of service and provision of health-care and health education services for this under-served community.
We are raising funds from individuals and corporate sponsors alike to spread the holiday cheer to these people and ask that you visit our webpage to donate. For less than $10, you could offer a family health insurance coverage for a year. For more on Glefe, the REACH Ghana Annual Screenathons and on REACH Ghana’s activities over the past year, please read on.
Glefe is a trading village which a University of Ghana Medical School study found has poor sanitation and high rates of malaria, gastrointestinal illnesses and other febrile diseases especially in the age-group 1-4yrs.
The Screenathon will thus provide essential education on disease prevention while testing for these and chronic problems like high blood pressure and diabetes. We will provide basic care at the event and transfer complex cases to the local health authorities ensuring care continuity. Depending on funding, we will register a limited number of inhabitants in the National Health Insurance Scheme.
REACH Ghana was founded by a group of young Ghanaians and is proudly advised by luminaries like Dr. Isabella Sagoe-Moses, National Child Health Coordinator at the Ghana Health Service, Dr. Paul Farmer, Professor of Medicine at the Harvard Medical School, and Dr. Andrew Arkutu, former Director of Country Support Team for Southern Africa of the United Nations Population Fund.
REACH Ghana has accomplished a lot in a short time viz a partnership with Kua, a US-based design brand committing a percentage of profits to REACH programs, and a Health Education Enhancement Initiative which has enabled shipment of medical education books from the US to Ghana.
In addition, REACH is in advanced stages of planning for an HIV/AIDS Intervention Project which will provide comprehensive HIV education, prevention and treatment services for young people on major university campuses and surrounding communities in Ghana. This effort meets an area of special need as it targets people between the ages of 18 and 35 who contribute almost 50% of new HIV infections in Ghana. As a first step, REACH Ghana placed HIV/AIDS awareness messages through innovative advertising on taxis in Accra earlier this year.
Finally, the Ghana based membership has been particularly active in our activities and are spearheading a project to address the high rates of HIV at Agomanya in the eastern region of Ghana through empowering women by facilitating access to foreign markets of the local bead-making community.
I encourage you to become a member of REACH Ghana by signing up here, and get involved in making a difference in Ghana.
Prime
*************************************************
This is the way I choose, the destiny I pursue
To help the unfit and the fit
To treat each according to his need
*************************************************
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