New Year full of Promise

"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.”-  Anne Frank

Wishing you a New Year filled with Promise and Hope as we link arms to improve the world.

                                                     

                                            The HealthEd Connect Team

               

  

Christmas blessing

Theresa

We recently received this heart-warming email from Theresa, a long-time Kafwa leader and former School Board member at Kasompe, Zambia.

Hello Mama Sheri,

it was nice to hear from you. we are also eager to seeing you soon. With your support lives of people are changing. This Christmas season our clients are smiling, it is because of healthed connect. We are going through a difficult time in Zambia our economy is poor giving somebody a bag of Mealie-Meal, Cooking oil, Salt. one sees the heavens open. 

May God continue to bless whoever has a hand in this organization. I am so grateful for the opportunity you gave me to save [serve]  on the school board. It helped me during the exams. I was able to answer some questions in Principals of Accounts. Even for the survey i did online for gender links South Africa. I got 100% and it gave me an opportunity to present my good practice in the driver of change category. I even won as a runner up, for which am so proud and in South Africa i am honoured with five stars. God is Faithful.

Best Regards, 

Theresa 

Happiest of Holidays!

                              

                                                  To our awesome supporters!

                              We're sending a big hug and the warmest of wishes

                                   for a holiday full of Love, Hope, and Joy!

                      The HealthEd Connect team

                          

Holiday Greetings from Nepal

Holiday Greetings from Pinkey and the children in Nepal!!

As you wind up your Christmas shopping, don't forget that you give twice when you shop at Smile.Amazon.com.  Once to your special person and once to the children in Zambia and Nepal whose treasured (and many times only) presents for Christmas will be the blessings of education and hot lunches you provide. Amazon makes a donation to HealthEd Connect every time you shop!

Holiday shopping is easy with Amazon's Holiday Gift Guides. #StartWithaSmile at smile.amazon.com for your holiday gifts and Amazon donates to HealthEd Connect.

Take a little HealthEd Connect quiz!

Which of the following responses best completes the statement below?

 

Sugar, salt, and water are the primary ingredients in: 

A. Grandma's cookie recipe

B. A home-spa facial treatment

C. A fun science experiment

D. A life-saving solution to combat the dehydrating effects of diarrhea in developing countries

Of course D is the correct answer!

     

​Oral Rehydration Therapy (ORT) is the least expensive and most effective treatment of diarrhea-related illnesses in developing countries. Our volunteer health workers in Nepal recently taught a group of over 150 villagers how to make this simple solution using a coke bottle to ensure the correct amounts of each ingredient.  It is crucial to use the proper amounts since too much sugar can make the diarrhea worse and too much salt can seriously harm the patient. This is one of the many tools our volunteers use in the field in both Africa and Nepal to combat one of the most dangerous illnesses afflicting their communities.

--

423 and counting!

Orphans in the Isubilo grief support program enjoying a game at Chipulukusu

The good news is out! The success of our amazing grief support program for orphans is being noted around the world from China to India to Zambia to the Philippines!

The article, Assessment of Emotional Status of Orphans and Vulnerable Children, published in the referred Journal of Nursing Scholarship,  has had 423 reads and 41 citations from professionals.  We are hoping others will replicate the program and experience the same wild success the Kafwa have found in helping grieving orphans through support groups.

Over 100 children find healing and renewed hope each year with their beloved Mama Madams who tirelessly and passionately run the programs.  We have run into one problem, however.  The kids don't want to 'graduate' from the group at the end of the 13-week program.  The Kafwa are pondering the possibility of establishing a follow-up program.

"Camping" in Nepal!

Dr. Kabiraj providing a free physical for a shy village friend​

Going "camping" has a radically different meaning in Nepal! "Camps" are held by many non-profits to bring medical care and health information to villagers who do not have money for or access to healthcare. Our amazing HealthEd Connect volunteers recently held a wildly successful camp in southern Nepal with well over 150 adults and 50 children in attendance. On the first day they taught sanitation, homeopathic diarrhea care and prevention, and then educated the villagers about preventing the mosquito-borne diseases that are a constant threat for the Nepali people. On the second day of camp a generous local doctor, Doctor Kabiraj, provided free physicals and dental checkups. Our volunteer health workers, Deepa, Aliza, Sangeeta, Pinkey, and Mina were the enthusiastic support staff. 

What an amazing team we have in Nepal!

--

Michelle Mahlik

BOD, HealthEd Connect (www.healthedconnect.org)

I was raped

Wasaidizi health workers teaching mothers in DR Congo

"I was raped.  I wanted to die, my sisters came, and I got hope."  This is the story line heard over and over by Leymah Gbowee, the 2016 International Peace Award recipient at the June 4, 2016 Community of Christ World Conference.  Ms. Gbowee was referring to the women in the Democratic Republic of Congo that is often called the capital of rape but which she refers to as the capital of sisterhood.

I would second her motion.  Whether the tragedy is rape, trauma during child birth, a diagnosis of AIDS, the death of a mother, or any number of other human tragedies, the volunteer health workers we proudly call HealthEd Connect heroes, have the same mantra sung for them...  "I was (you fill in the blank), I wanted to die, my sisters came, and I got hope."

Zika mosquitoes have spots

Sherri and Lauren reviewing lesson with Josephine Kipampe in
Mwense, Zambia.  Note the little onlooker in the back row!

Did you know mosquitoes that carry the Zika virus can be differentiated by the white dots on their legs and bodies?  Our health workers in Zambia, DR Congo, Malawi, and Nepal do!!   We began training on the causes of Zika and the symptoms to watch for over a year ago.  My guess is many of our health workers are better informed than the average American.

According to Thomas Frieden, Director of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), "we will see this [Zika] become endemic in the hemisphere."  There are currently more than 4000 people in the U.S. who acquired Zika while traveling abroad.  Forty-nine of our 50 states have been affected; only Alaska has been exempt.  At the moment only one area, Miami-Dade county in Florida, has documented cases of Zika being contracted from local mosquitoes.  The heart-wrenching impact of this virus is evident with every case of an affected baby reported.  Unfortunately, no vaccines are in the near future.