22 Feb Serving The Community

Meet with Gambella medical team who volunteer in Gog district of Gambella, Ethiopia. This group dedicated themselves in 2008 and served 373 patients within three days in three differences villages in Gog Jangjor, Gog dipach, and Gog Shiabaa. They have done tremendous job and provided mobile clinic, books for orphanage, drilled wells, clothes, sports item, and taught orphanage school. If anyone willing to experience different culture and want to help, please join us for upcoming trip to Gambella, Ethiopia.

In this remote region of Ethiopia, most of indigenous people do not have access to basic health care, clean water, and other social services. We hope to return annually to continue educating and help to establish mobile health clinic. Educating these forgotten people about hygiene is one of the best way to save them from fatal diseases.
Due to shortage of medical supplies and medicine in these villages, patients were lineup to get treatment in Gog district of Gambella.  Also shortage of health care profession has been a major challenges in the Region and only one Hospital served the entirely Gambella Region.

To avoid this problem, we need more volunteers, medical supplies, and equipment for the vulnerable people to get access to basic medical care and others.

The Executive director of Gambella medical Team Connection; volunteer with the Gambella Regional Health Bureau from July to December 2015 and conducted child malnutrition assessment. He also works with interdisciplinary team, monitor HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and investigate Guinea Worm case.

He says “as a one of the natives from the region, he had privilege to serve his community and great opportunity to obtain the best experience and learned about Gambella Regional’s health care system. He further said that it was the best opportunity to fulfill his sacred promise to observed and become a part of health care system of the greatest Gambella Region. He takes great pride in the Region and think it is the duty of every citizen to support ongoing development of the Region. He was excited to do his share in helping such a crucial part of the Region.
He encouraging everyone to do the same; volunteer can participate working on variety of programs including: Health education, promotion, prevention and treatment, and leadership. Participant also can assist staff both in and out of the Hospital, in the Clinic or Community Health center, and Administration office. Task will be assigning by the local staff based on participant’s background work experience. This is great opportunity for volunteer to learn about Gambella Region’s health system.

Isaac Joe Stewart is one of our volunteer who went to Gambella Region of Ethiopia with his father Joe Stewart in 2008, to experience life in other part of the World. He was very excited to set up a bible study for those children and told the story of Jesus Christ. In 2014, he graduated with Bachelor of Science in English from Utah State University. Now he is optimistic to go back to Gambella and teach English as a second language (ESL).

Success early in life may lay the foundation for the child’s experiences in education and beyond. Investing in our children is an investing in the future of our generation to grab the best education.

During volunteer in this place, Isaac was surrounding with these vulnerable children and witness lack of knowledge about health issues that contributes towards high levels of illness and most often children missed a lot of school as the result of academic performance remains low.

In this remote, there is also lack of opportunity for children to play sports and games which are important to improve health well-being as well as teaching children vital life skills. There are effective and practical solutions we can implement to ensure that basic health issues do not pose threat to the children’s chance of getting quality education. In the long term, the benefits of educating children on health issues have been well-documented and evidence show positive impact on child mortality and morbidity rate and reduce HIV/AIDS rate in the rural community.
Nutrition is the process of providing or obtaining the food necessary for health and growth; therefore, it is important for children to eat food that keep them healthy and help to grow. More than half million school children do not have ready access to nutritious food according to the Department of Education. A child cannot concentrate and learn on an empty stomach; therefore, good nutrition plays vital part in good education.  Some schools offer nutrition program of bread and juice, but other countries like Ethiopia’s children are inadequate and cannot be relied upon to meet basic dietary needs. Lack of consuming right diet can result in chronic malnutrition and persistent food insecurity for children. By sponsoring nutrition project, you might be able to help thousands of children who skip school for not having food to eat.