Project Heal Dental and First Aid Clinics

Vital Stats

Jane B

  • people helped2500
  • People Doing It 16

The Problem

Myself and Project Heal as a whole are trying to tackle the growing health issues within the north-western region of Ghana, specifically, a small village entitled Lawra. For the past four years, Project Heal has conducted a series of dental and first aid clinics/workshops to teach young students the importance of keeping up proper hygiene. In the past, Project Heal was limited to the number of people that they could affect, because lack of funds to buy dental and first aid supplies. With the help of this grant, we are hoping to extend the program by conducting a large public seminar in which all members of the community can receive information and products for keeping up with their hygiene. This grant will allow us to not only reach the younger generations of this community, but the elderly. This particular project is unique because we are not only giving dental and first aid products to the community members, but we are teaching them how to use the products so they can teach future generations, in other words, this is a sustainable project.

Plan of Action

Project Heal will be returning to Ghana in May, 2011. We will be in Ghana for a period of one month. Within this month, we will spend up to sixteen days in Lawra. During this time we will be busy setting up dates with the district commissioner in order to conduct our dental and first aid public workshop. Before the actual date of the workshop, we will publicize the date and the workshops purpose. We will also use schools that we have helped in the past in order to make the turnout within the Lawra community as large as possible. We will also ask that Lawra district officials help with the public workshop, in order to conduct it in an orderly fashion. For the dental supplies, we will be getting our toothbrushes from Venture Six Inc., they will cost up $550.00 and will supply 5,000 toothbrushes. For the toothpaste, we will be getting 2,500 2.75 oz tubes, which will cost $960.00 trough Colonial Medical Assisted Devices. This ensures that 2,500 individuals will be reached with this workshop. All individuals will receive a bag containing two toothbrushes, a tube of toothpaste and a flier, describing the instructions for properly brushing one's teeth. As for the first aid portion of the workshops, we will be buying 10,000 band-aids from Emergency Medical Products so that each person receives 4 band-aids in their baggie. This will cost $300.00. Within the baggie, individuals will have fliers describing how to dress their wounds along with antiseptic wipes and ointments which will be donated. This leaves the total at $1810.00. The remaining $190.00 will be used to purchase baggies into which the dental and first-aid supplies will be stored and distributed.

Project Updates

Project Heal will be leaving for our trip to Lawra Ghana on May 10, 2011. Along with conducting the first aid and dental workshops, we are working to receive other grants that can fund the implementation of four compost pit latrines. According to the World Health Organization, in 2006, just 6% of the rural population in Ghana had sustainable access to improved sanitation facilities due to the urban-bias in the development of these facilities. Lawra, located in the rural upper West region of Ghana, is the perfect example for this statistic. According to the Ghana Statistical Service Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey Report for 2006, 35.5% of Ghanaians in rural communities practice open defecation and urination. As a co-leader and previous trip member I have seen first hand and worked with the Ghanaian people to understand the need and desire for any form of sanitation facility and develop the framework of the project from the 2010 trip. Last summer I witnessed the children at a local day care, the Holiness Day Care center, defecating in a close proximity to the school building and each other. We remedied this problem by constructing similar latrines at the day care to much success. The latrines ensure that human waste does not run into drinking water causing huge increases to the community’s risk of respiratory diseases, worm infestations, hepatitis, diarrhea, and malaria. After seeing the latrines, Madam Marjorie Nintori, the founder and leader of the Methodist Clinic, specifically asked for compostable pit latrines to increase the sanitation at her clinic where health is the first priority. Britany Ferrell, a Peace Corps volunteer in Lawra has been in contact with the headmaster at Emerson Senior High School who also expressed keen interest in the latrines as an addition to her school where there are no proper toilet facilities. At both the Methodist Orphanage and Nutrition Center and the Eremon Senior High School people “free themselves’ next to bushes and trees with no promise of privacy or cleanliness. As a result the area is unsanitary and rainwater carries human feces into open wells, rivers and ponds, contaminating the community’s water. We are hoping that these latrines will help alleviate this problem in areas of Lawra. Furthermore, we are implementing drip irrigation systems at the Methodist Aids Clinic to help their agriculture which is used to make profit and run the clinic itself.

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Physical and Mental Health
Healthy Living

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