After the holiday season things have begun to go back to normal here in the Portobelo area. However, Panama still maintains its signature style of getting work done at a relaxed and comfortable pace. High school started back up for students who are in the agriculture program or who need to make up classes from last year. The agriculture students come in for half days and are mostly focused on their hands-on practical projects. This week Professor Wilfredo and I hope to be able to take students to visit the water intake source and collect water samples from students living in different towns and test water from all over the district using the E. coli testing kits we had donated. We had been hoping to do this the past couple weeks but flooding rains have put a damper on working in the jungle; one week school was cancelled for three days in a row due to flooding. On the subject of water testing, the results from the MINSA water testing done in November finally arrived. Unfortunately, of the seven results that were shown to me from the district none contained the presence of chlorination and all contain either fecal coliforms or E. coli. We have some more work to do. On the sunny side of things I have begun giving chlorination charlas in a town called Maria Chiquita in addition to Portobelo. In Maria Chiquita the local clinic is smaller; they only have a doctor once a week and can only see up to 20 patients on the day the doctor is there. However, this makes for a welcoming atmosphere for giving charlas since patients waiting are more likely to pay attention and ask questions. This past week I got off the bus in Maria Chiquita (about 40 mins from Portobelo by bus) and began to walk towards the clinic when a lady sitting at a fonda, or small restaurant serving one or two meal options at breakfast and lunch, called me over. She had been in the clinic the week before when I gave the charla and wanted to let me know that the doctor had not shown up today to see patients. As I thanked her and turned to walk away she called me back and asked if I could give the charla right there for the people eating at the fonda. Of course I could! Although it was only for about 5 people it turned out to be a great idea as those listening were much more involved and willing to have a conversation with me. Everyone told me they would give the charla at home to their families and suggested I also come back and teach the information to the teachers at the school there when school starts back up at the end of February. I also got a free coffee! In the USA life is all about planning but here in Panama life tends to be focused on simply living; what happens will happen.
It’s surprising how fast time flies by as another month has past since Future Scientist returned to Portobelo! The past 30 days have been filled with holidays here in Panama but that doesn’t mean that we can’t get things done. Overall month 2 has been almost entirely focused on the charlas that Heidi began in her first month of work but now with a focus on health centers in Portobelo and hopefully beyond. There are two clinics in Portobelo, one for people registered within Panama’s social health care system and one for anyone. In the mornings the waiting rooms are filled with patients and Heidi has been able to reach about 50 adults directly and based on reported household size this information is now available to almost 200 more people. We were also able to meet with a nurse from the health center in Maria Chiquita, the next biggest town in Portobelo’s district and are planning to start charlas in January when they return to their normal schedule. These talks are especially important right now as there have been soaking rains almost every day during the month of December so far. During these rainy periods the water in the streams, and therefore the water being delivered to people’s homes becomes visibly dirty, so much so that often the local authorities turn off the municipal water so that people will not be able to use water with this level of contamination. Separately we are slowly starting to work on more hands-on projects as well. Heidi was able to observe a community member actually applying chlorine to a small aqueduct system in the Guinea neighborhood of Portobelo recently, which is exciting. Luis, the man who worked on this and in general maintains the system, said that it is the first time in about a year that they have had access to chlorine tablets. MINSA, the local ministry of health also came by this month to do their bi-annual testing of water sources in the area and Heidi brought them to the high school to test the water there and see the school’s filtration and chlorination system so they might be more motivated to help the school in the future. Additionally the first steps were made on a small project to upgrade the school’s water intake structure. A new tube was installed with a low-tech filter but as we are in middle of what has been a very rainy season we will be waiting until drier weather starts to build a wall. [Sorry for the poor photo quality. As you can see, it was wet!] Finally, in a separate category of work led by intern Lauren McDonnell, Future Scientist has plans to start a small farmer’s market in Portobelo’s town square. While talking to nurses at the local clinics, Heidi and Lauren discovered that some of the most common health concerns in the area are actually chronic diseases such as high blood pressure and diabetes. To try and combat this in future generations Lauren had the idea to start a farmer’s market to encourage greater consumption of fruits, vegetables and lean protein while improving market access for small farmers. Ideally the market would involve vendors who come by in cars to sell their produce, local farmers and families with small plots of land who may not have previously had a place to sell their surplus goods, and high school students who could sell vegetables and eggs that are part of the agricultural program’s production. Though still in the early stages, we hope this market will be a success, stay tuned!
¡Buenas días a todos y todas! And so starts every charla (short talk) we’ve given here as part of the Future Scientist water education program here in Portobelo, Colon, Panama. Though it’s been a few years since Future Scientist was working here on the ground, we are well remembered by many key community members and stakeholders. Everyone who has worked with us in the past is excited to have us back as a constant presence in Portobelo and interested in what we might be able to do next with the community. Water is still a principal concern for most citizens, but the situation has certainly improved since Future Scientist first arrived in March 2012 and initiated multiple educational program and community projects aimed at improving access to clean water. After a month of observation, data collection, and needs assessment Future Scientist’s program coordinator and first full time employee, Heidi Rausch, started working with students in the agriculture program at the high school, Colegio Jacobo Urriola Solis. The agriculture students are easiest to work with as their curriculum is uniquely hands-on and the director of their program, Wilfredo Aguilar, is very motivated to improving quality of life for the students at the colegio and within the community. Throughout the month of November, Heidi has given charlas about how to correctly chlorinate water using our simple chlorination kits on a household level to more than 100 students. Some of these are students in the local night school, which is mostly composed of young adult to middle aged women. Based on how many people these students reported that they live with, this information has the potential to reach over 550 people within 27 communities in Portobelo and the surrounding area. A few students seem interested in trying to help conduct outreach efforts within Portobelo and extending out to their home communities. At the end of November, colegio students will be working with Heidi to educate 6th graders in the elementary school and patients at a few of the local health centers. An additional project that Wilfredo is hoping to complete with help from Heidi and student participation is improving the water source that supplies the high school’s water storage and purification system designed and constructed as a past Future Scientist project. Currently the intake structure for the school’s water is damaged due to water flow and allows significant amounts of dirt and debris to enter the system. The plan is to design and construct a low-profile dam and low cost filter made from the same PVC pipe in which the water is entering the system. We are also working with MINSA (Panamanian Ministry of Health) to try and replace the school’s chlorinator, which had recently broken. In combination with these improvements Wilfredo and Heidi had the idea to try and teach interested students about aqueduct design, construction and maintenance with the hope that they can use this knowledge in their communities. Future Scientist is considering developing the aqueduct program into a major effort to complement chlorination kit outreach. This will enable communities to maintain higher quality water sources and be able to effectively disinfect the water to improve access to clean water. It's exactly one week from the start of the impact assessment trip. The 4-person team will have a tough job ahead but they are excited and up to the task. As part of the trip, they will be developing detailed groundwork for an ambitious new project that builds off of our past work with the residents of Portobelo.
Waterborne illnesses are a primary source of disease in Portobelo, Panama. Future Scientist has been working with the community, particularly though a collaboration with the high school, to build awareness through hands-on science lessons and provide means of water treatment through chlorination kit distribution and construction of several water purification systems. We have leveraged the student body to conduct outreach sessions at the local clinic and throughout the community. Our aim in this project is to connect this student-focused approach with the clinic in order to have healthcare professional buy-in, increased ability to quantitatively assess impact of the outreach program, and empower high school students by providing them with a scientific and health setting experience. By connecting the school with the clinic and providing consumable materials and training, we are testing a model of community empowerment that lets the members themselves address a critical problem. Stay tuned for updates... It's important to step back and take a good look at what you've done so far. This is particularly important for nonprofits like Future Scientist, where the primary goal is to improve the well-being of a community. We have been working with the Portobelo community since late 2011, developing several primarily clean water-based projects and doing widespread assessments of the main issues present in the town and nearby areas. Due to a lower than normal applicant pool for the August trip, we decided to revise our plans. We will be using this two week trip to quantify our impact on the community and lay the groundwork for an exciting project. We will conduct two rounds of surveys: one for the community as a whole and one for the colegio students. This will help us determine people's views on water quality, what they have picked up from our hands-on science lessons and outreach programs, and identify barriers to copying some of our water purification designs in other parts of Portobelo and beyond. Julie and Ming, our fearless trip leaders, are developing a very exciting project based on our work to date, which will connect Future Scientist with the colegio curriculum and the local clinic. We are aiming to develop a model for community empowerment that would bring student interns into the clinic to hand our chlorination kits, perform instructional outreach, and collect data on disease rates from the clinic. Additional students will measure coliform levels at many water sources and homes, providing a "contamination map." Future Scientist will process the aggregated information to enable us to not only track our impact but also share this data with clinicians to inform their treatments and provide a degree of anticipatory medicine. The students will be able to use this project to apply to the regional science fair (which they won last year by presenting data from the water purification system we built!). Finally, we want to take this Independence Day to thank the many kind donors who are making our work possible. Your donations are the main reason we are able to continue teaching science and engineering in Panama. Thank you! |
Archives
July 2020
Categories |