By Jennifer Quigley, Frist Global Health Leader
Today was a busy but productive and gratifying day! We started the day at Second Mile Haiti ministries. This is a wonderful organization started by two young Americans, one a nurse and the other with a business/engineering background who saw the need for family education with malnourished children. The ministry has several rooms that house malnourished and underdeveloped children, siblings and their moms (sometimes dads!).
The ministry teaches the whole family the importance of proper nutrition, and educates them for several weeks as the child or children are regaining health. They teach the parents a trade such as sewing or jewelry making, and how to plant and grow their own food so that when they leave the organization they have resources to gain jobs, raise and grow their own food, and obtain healthy habits so that children do not fall back into being malnourished once they leave.
They asked us to come to their organization to teach them a method of natural family planning because, while they may not have a clinic on hand to provide prescriptions, they want to provide education to women who come to the organization so that they may have the opportunity to prevent pregnancies and have only the amount of children the family can afford.
The director stated that this method can help the women to prevent the malnourishment in continuing children of families who simply cannot afford to feed the number of blessings they have and who try to make a little bit of food last a long time. The organization had several nurses and non-licensed clinical workers that provide education to the women who wanted to receive the training. We trained 6 workers at this clinic who were very eager to learn and help the women they serve.
In the afternoon, we went and taught the health care providers at the hospital of the Sisters of Quatier Morin. This institution had a school, a hospital, a convent for vowed and novice Sisters, and an orphanage. The Sisters have their hands full! The class went very well, teaching 5 MDs, nurses, and social workers the Standard Days Method of family planning so that they can offer a method of family planning to their patients.
Only one more clinic left to teach! This fellowship experience has gone by way too fast, with so many blessings flowing from it!