See It: The Community being helped

My name is Emma Lawrence and I am currently a junior at the University of North Carolina. I am a co-founder of Project HEAL, a public health initiative based in Ghana, West Africa. Project HEAL aims to provide the fundamental knowledge and supplies needed to prevent basic infections and related health problems. Our approach is based upon two main facets: providing individual kits containing basic medical supplies that are safe and effective for family use, and holding school and community-based educational workshops to provide information about the use of items in the kits and available medical resources in the area.

Project Heal traveled to Ghana for four weeks in the summer of 2007. We worked in two locations: Lawra, in the rural impoverished upper-west region of Ghana, and Kumasi, a city of a million people in central Ghana. Despite facing many challenges, we achieved our goals of opening dialogue with community health leaders, developing local contacts, and building a partnership with Lawra District Hospital.

In Lawra, Ghana, we held three educational workshops for community members and the families of school aged children. All information was presented in both English and local languages, and was supplemented by the distribution of pictorial pamphlets and individual medical kits containing basic first aid supplies. In Kumasi, Ghana, we held a workshop for the teachers at Queen Elizabeth II Kindergarten and the director of the Kumasi Children's Home, explaining the use of the basic first aid items included in the large kits we donated.

With project sustainability in mind, we placed great importance on providing community leaders with necessary information and supplies to implement future workshops. At each workshop site, we worked with a community leader or local health official, who provided translation from English to the local language. We provided this individual with additional supplies and pamphlets, as well as contact instructions to utilize when they run out of these materials.

Before leaving Ghana, we gave 450 individual kits and pamphlets to Lawra District Hospital. Since our return to the United States, the primary doctor and director led an education workshop at the Lawra Secondary School, after which they distributed kits and pamphlets. One of the most rewarding aspects of this experience is knowing that the health officials from Lawra Hospital are using our project as a springboard for future workshops and health education programs.

Currently, we are developing plans to return to Ghana next summer to bring down more medical supplies, hold another round of informational workshops, and build upon community contacts. In the meantime, we plan to continue shipping individual kits, refill packages, and pamphlets to our contacts in Lawra and Kumasi.

See It: The Community being helped

Reach Out Chernobyl Organization (R.O.C.O.) was established in order to provide better medical care for children suffering from the aftermath of the 1986 Chernobyl power plant disaster. When the nuclear explosion occurred more than two decades ago, the radiation emitted spread to all of Eastern Europe. Even today, the areas affected in the 80s still carry radiation in the ground, which further creates a chain-reaction of birth defects and high incidences of cancer in children.

R.O.C.O.'s goal is to equip two different medical centers in Klitnsy, Russia (a Children's Hospital and a Development Center for Invalid Children) and a Children's Orphanage with basic essential medical supplies (e.g. over-the-counter cold medication, bandaids, vitamins, toothpaste, and more) to treat sick children. The main issue is that the hospitals which take care of these sick children, often lack the basic medical essentials to do their job. We plan to appeal to companies, institutions, medical centers and willing businesses to donate basic supplies that R.O.C.O can then package and ship to the children who can most benefit from them.

A website, http://www.reachoutchernobyl.org, was created to not only enhance expansion of our purpose, but to educate individuals about the sorts of consequences innocent children endure to this day as a result of the tragic mistake that occurred well before their time.

Without sufficient funding to cover the extensive shipping costs, we will be unable to deliver these life-saving products to needy children. The Plum Grant would provide us with a sizable portion of what we would need to carry out our purpose.