Working Safely with Tobacco

During the summer, my nurse partner and I undertook an important cause-- education for working safely with tobacco. This health concern is especially relevant in our community in which around 90% of families cultivate tobacco. With limited job availability in the village and limited marketable goods, many are left without options and are forced into growing and selling tobacco in order to have some form of household income. A lack of technology makes labor-intensive work becomes a family affair, and, unfortunately, this work is not without risk.

Working with and around tobacco poses many health risks. Nicotine and other toxins are absorbed from tobacco leaves into the skin and increase the risk for cancer. Shorter-term problems may arise including nicotine poisoning (absorption of large amounts of nicotine through the skin or by ingestion) and Tobacco Worker's Lung (inhalation of molds which causes lung inflammation).

Of course there exist general health risks associated with working in the sun as well. Dehydration and sun burn add to the dangers associated with tobacco cultivation.

The good news is, that while we can't eliminate all risk associated with tobacco cultivation, we can at least lessen risks by being staying protected. My partner and I worked to educate community members through seminars conducted at the school, medical center and mayor's office. (Picture below at the school.)

Of course, we all are familiar with protection methods against dehydration and sunburn. Drink plenty of water (about 2-4 glasses of water per hour when working in the heat) to prevent dehydration and cover skin with clothing or sunblock to prevent burning.

Nicotine intoxication can be prevented through a number of methods. Simply wearing gloves to lessen the amount of nicotine absorbed through the skin. Changing work clothes immediately after work and washing work clothes before wearing them again also help to reduce the amount of nicotine absorbed. Taking a cool shower also help to reduce absorption.

Tobacco Worker's Lung can be prevented by properly drying and storing tobacco to prevent tobacco molds from growing. (Below is pictured a drying rack in my village.)

Here's to hoping that in the future my village will find another my village will find other income sources in the future, but for now, I feel good knowing that they now know how to protect themselves and their families.

WE HAVE HAND WASHING SINKS!

Check out these beauties!

We installed seven sinks at the school

and one sink at the medical center.

Students and teachers will now be able to wash their hands after using the outhouse and before eating in the cafeteria and nurses and doctor will be able to wash their hands between patients and before and after procedures. Yay!

Stay tuned for follow up data to see if we reached our goals for decreasing illness in the community and school absences!

Health Fair

We kicked off our village health campaign with a health fair.

The health fair was geared towards all community members and the topics were chosen and written in collaboration with the nursing staff at the medical center.

Health topics included information about what constitutes a healthy diet, interactive calorie content games (people ordered common foods from low to high and then ordered activities from low to high by calories burned per hour),

blood pressure checks,

body mass evaluations,

true or false game about the benefits of exercise,

and some demonstrations of flexibility, muscle building and aerobic exercises.

Health clubs students also ran a booth with information about stress managing methods and gave free back and hand massages. (I took advantage of this after the fair. : )

We also revealed our plans for the new sport field:

Here's a key:

Pink: Playground including swing set, see-saw and a recycled tire structure.

Orange: Pull-up bars and long jump

Blue: Basketball court including new cement tiles and new backboards

Green: Soccer field with reinforced goal posts and freshly-painted lines

Gray: Spectator benches

Purple: Fence enclosing the whole field (This is especially important because currently cars and carts drive through the field and livestock graze there, making grass-growing impossible)

It'll be a great improvement over our current field:

At the fair, we also encourage community members to choose and implement one of four pre-written health goals. Here are the goals community members could choose: (Feel free take on a goal yourself!)

1. At least 50% of my diet will be composed of fruits and vegetables for at least one month.

2. I will practice physical exercises for at least 30 minutes per day for at least one month.

3. I will use less fat (oil, animal fat, butter, etc) and salt when cooking for at least one month.

4. I will use healthy stress management techniques when I feel stress for at least one month.

We will follow up with participating community members will with over-the-phone surveys in about two months' time to check in on their progress.

If you'd like to donate to our project fund, click here!

A Year of Health Club

Health club has been a blast this year. We accomplished a lot in a year's time.

We celebrated these accomplishments at a year-end party where we ate way too many cookies, drank some Kool Aid (Thanks Mom!), played musical chairs and took some goofy pictures.

We also watched this little video with some of the highlights of the year:

Some translations and explanations:

Petrecere Halloweenului = Halloween Party

Teatru de Papuși: Spalarea mîinilor = Puppet Theater: Handwashing

The little song they sing was written by another volunteer, basically, they just list a bunch of actions (I played with a cat, I used the bathroom, I wiped my nose, etc.) and then STOP, I wash my hands.

Postere: Spalarea mîinilor = Posters: Handwashing

The posters list the proper method for handwashing and are going to be placed above the sinks at the school and at the medical center after they are installed.

Viața fară violența = Life Without Violence

We did a little social theater activity for other students at school and talked about what to do in cases of abuse.

Ziua femeilor = Women's Day

Women's Day is a national holiday in Moldova. Here's a little more about our event.

Hai Moldova și hai Scorțeni = Let's go Moldova and Let's go Scorțeni

This was part of a nation-wide clean-up campaign.

Facem acțiune = Do Actions

This was a physical exercise event. More details on that here.

Mulțumesc pentru un an de suces. = Thanks for a successful year.

Also, thanks to all of YOU for checking out this blog post. : )

Exercițiile Fizice (Say what?!)

Yep, physical exercise.

Beyonce style.

OK, maybe not exactly Beyonce style, but my health club kids, 50+ younger kids who participated, and I exercised today.

We split into three groups and did some aerobic exercises,

some strengthening exercises,

and a bit of flexibility training.

Also these cute little babies came by.

It was a good time.

Did you know that physical exercise can:

Boost your energy levels?

Help you maintain a healthy weight?

Prevent certain chronic diseases?

Improve your mood?

Give you better, more restful sleep?

Be FUN?

Now you know . . . Get on it!

Preventing Infectious Diseases

For the past several months, my grant team and I have been working on a BIG project.

Currently, we don't have sinks at the school or the medical center. This a problem, right? Right. But, it turns out, it's not the root problem.

At a grant-writing conference my partner and I were trained to ask, "Why?" until we reached the problem root. We started with our identified issue:

There are not sinks for hand washing at the school or the medical center.

So, why aren't there sinks at the school and at the medical center? It's not a priority.

Why isn't it a priority? There is a lack of education.

There you have it: The community of Scorțeni had a lack of education regarding methods for the prevention of infectious illnesses. We set to work educating as many members of the community as possible.

At the school, we had an information session with all of the teachers and staff. We talked about methods for preventing infectious illness and focused on the first line of defense: hand washing.

The teachers in turn educated students.

The students (the kids in my health club), in turn, educated younger students through a puppet show and a song.

We wanted to be sure that what students were learning at school would be reinforced and practiced at home, so we also did an education session with parents.

And we didn't just want the parents to be educated, but as many people as possible in our community, so we did education sessions at the medical center for both the medical staff and for as many patients as possible.

We also plan to do some education at the mayor's office and at the church for other community members, but haven't gotten there yet.

Once community members were educated about the importance of hand washing and it became a priority, we asked them to help us with our goal of installing sinks at the school and medical center with financial donations.

Teachers at school and nurses at the medical center each donated 50 lei (about $4.50) to the cause. (A little perspective: The average Moldovan teacher makes around 22oo lei per month and the average Moldovan nurse makes about 14 lei an hour.)

Kids at the school had a penny war.

The winning class had a "Night at the Cinema."

In total, the students raised 3701 lei (about $340).

We also placed donation jars at the mayor's office and at the medical center, wrote donation request letters to some local businesses, and asked for individual donations from community members.

We were able to raise around 9,000 lei in the community. YAY!

With fingers and toes crossed, we presented our project to a group at the Peace Corps in hopes of winning a Small Projects Assistance grant.

WE WERE FUNDED in the amount of $2,440!

If you have not already seen it on Facebook, here is a little video that we put together for our grant presentation:

By September 1, 2011 look for some pictures of sinks and lots and lots of pictures people washing their hands.

By the end of the first semester of 2011, I hope to be reporting a 25% decrease in the number of people addressing the doctor with preventable diseases and a 25% reduction in the number of students missing school due to illness.

YAY PROGRESS!!! : )

Women's Day

March 8th was a big celebration here in Moldova (as well as internationally). We celebrated women and girls across the country with Ziua femeilor, Women's Day. Our school was on a vacation on the 8th, so my health club and I decided to start the celebrations a little early on the March 4th.

We made over 200 little paper corsages with little notes of appreciation (Examples: You're beautiful, You're like a star, You're intelligent, etc.) to hand out to all of the girls and women at school.

We wanted to do a little something extra special for the female teachers and staff, so we practiced and gave hand massages.

Hand massaging was a new thing for the kids so they practiced at home on their mothers. They told me they used oil because they didn't have lotion.

Here are some pictures of the actual event. (I forgot to take pictures of the kids passing out the corsages.)

Translation: Welcome to the massage room.

Translation: We wish you a Happy Women's Day from the Health Club

It was a good time. : )