Nancy's first Humanitarian project

Erica came into our office about 3 weeks ago requesting help with a service she wanted to do.  She works at a Chemical Shop (pharmacy) and also goes to school taking accounting.  

The shop was previously owned by a lady who passed away this last year.  She used to give sweets and biscuits to the kids at Christmas time.  Erica and the shop owner (the deceased son) wanted to do something more.  They wanted to give free malaria testing, malaria medication, if needed, deworming medicine and a blood tonic (to build the blood).  Most children here have worms and it depletes the iron etc. in the blood.  They can pull down the skin at the bottom of the eye and see whether or not they have worms.

I wrote up the project and submitted the request and it was approved.  LDS Charities bought the medications and Malaria test strips for 1000 children.  We may have too much, and if so, we can take what is left and donate it to a clinic.

We just didn't want to run short.

A nurse volunteered her time to do the testing and Erica gave out the medications as needed.  We will pay her transport and lunch. 

When we were there yesterday and again today, there was a fairly steady stream of children being brought for testing.    The free service will be announced at Churches on Sunday so we expect next week will be quite busy.  The project will be carried out for 6 days (3 days this week and 3 days next week). 

Bro. Obeng, a councilor at the MTC, lives in the area.  He also works with NGO (non government organization) teaching children about HIV etc.   He helped us a lot with this project and made sure that Erica did things properly.  We really appreciated his support.

When we were there yesterday we realized that we needed to give the kids a biscuit (cookie) after they were done to make them happy!  :)   Bro. Obeng picked some up for us (pkg. of 24 for about $1.00 U.S.).  It was nice to have them today for the children.

Picture # 5 and 6 are of a young boy who was scared to death of getting his finger pricked.  We never did do it - he was not about to let us.

Picture #7 - that cute little guy didn't even flinch when his finger was pricked.

We thought we had ordered malaria test strips that tested saliva, not blood.  O well, we got what we got!