Support a Kenya ministry. But First...

There is a testimonial and fundraising appeal to support a ministry teaching public health practices in Kenya.

 

But first a search string

World Blind Union Kenya

See

Africa Section of the WBU Nairobi Office

Also see several webinars starting with

Kenya's Implementation of the Sustainable Development Guidelines

There, now instead of just hearing that people with disabilities are not really seen in the streets, there are some webinars to chew on. 

RantWoman has not gone in search of data, but RantWoman is not above guessing that many instances of blindness and other disabilities could be prevented with better public health practices. RantWoman also assumes that there are many people with disabilities in Kenya who, if they had a way to take classes, could learn as well as teach modern public health practices.

RantWoman, why do you need to bring up all that? 

RantWoman has now made at least two and perhaps three requests, but who's counting, for video of a recent Adult Religious Education on Friend Nora Percival's most recent public health education ministry trip to Kenya. RantWoman made these requests in response to public invitations to ask. If RantWoman had videos to watch, would RantWoman be more kindly disposed just to reprint the latest report and appeal?

OR, if University Friends Meeting had the kind of visionary web presence that documented the Quaker processes and practices behind this ministry as well as events such as the Adult Religious Education session on RantWoman's request list, RantWoman would just go watch the videos herself and not get in everyone's faces.

RantWoman does remember one time making one of her standard issue reasonable accommodations requests to have a copy of some Adult Religious Education slides emailed to her. RantWoman was told that the slides were just pictures that would not mean anything without the stories behind them. In the case of that presentation, RantWoman decided just to live with that ableist presumption about what RantWoman can see up close as opposed to across the room.

But the latest presentation is a report by Zoom. That means that RantWoman will refrain from bellowing about how screen share is inaccessible to screen reader users. RantWoman would be perfectly fine with having the narrative and the illustrations up close in a a form that RantWoman can view up close on her very own large screen device.

If only.

In the meantime, RantWoman will continue her ministry of faithfulness presence and people with disabilities

AND

RantWoman encourages readers to support the next chapter of 

UFM's  Kenya Health Education Ministry continues. At the end of May, I (Nora Percival) will be returning to the medical training college in eastern Kenya where I taught last fall. During my last visit to the college, I shared my CREME preventive health syllabus with the people who teach Community Health & Development (CHD) students, who will work after they graduate supervising community health volunteers. The college administration has asked me to come back and share my CREME material with the people who teach all first-year students at the college, about 200 each year. These students go on to work as nurses, lab techs, phlebotomists, and other mid-level health workers. The college wants to ensure that they all have the basic preventive health knowledge embodied in CREME. As a bonus, adding CREME to the first year curriculum means that CHD students who get the material again in the second year will already be familiar with the basic ideas and will be able to explore the concepts in greater depth. Please check out the attached flyer for more information.

This work is supported 100% by donations from individuals and meetings. Each trip costs about $11,000, which may seem like a lot, but is actually just a small fraction of what it costs to do this kind of work through an NGO. If you are led to support the work financially, please send a check to UFM (4001 9th Avenue NE, Seattle, WA 98105) or go to ufmseattle.org and click the word "Donate" at the bottom of the page to give via PayPal. Be sure to note "Kenya Ministry" in the note field, so UFM allocates the donation correctly. Many thanks from me and the people of Kenya.

Full text of flyer

(Pretend you are  reading it with a screen reader.

Or leave a comment and RantWoman will forward the nicely formatted PDF flyer with lovely though unlabelled photos.)

Kenya Health Education Ministry Summary Nora J. Percival – February 2022 The goal of my Kenya ministry is to make basic preventive health information available to people throughout the country. There are about 50 million people in Kenya, most of them extremely poor and minimally educated. As in most of the developing world, access to health care services is very limited. For example, there is 1 medical provider (doctor or physician’s assistant) for every 1,800 people in Kenya, compared to about 1 for every 200 people in the U.S. In the absence of readily available health care, avoiding getting sick is often a matter of life and death. Unfortunately, basic preventive health information is also scarce. There is widespread ignorance of common simple practices that help people stay healthy. Without this knowledge, superstitions and traditions tend to drive personal health choices, often with disastrous results. For example, almost half of Kenyan children under 5 are anemic, and 20% of women of childbearing age die from birth-related causes. Transforming health care in Kenya will take serious efforts by governments and international NGOs over time. In the meantime, Kenyans themselves can do a lot to improve their health and wellbeing. To do this, they need basic health information that has not been available to them for generations. Giving them this information is the goal of this ministry. I have developed a basic health education curriculum that any child can learn, based on the acronym CREME. It stands for: be Clean – get enough Rest – Eat well – Move – Every day The idea is to introduce CREME to Kenya’s 120,000+ community health volunteers (CHVs), nonclinical health workers who help their neighbors identify their needs and find health care services. Then the CHVs can share these basic concepts with the millions of poor Kenyans they serve. I have tested the curriculum by teaching it to groups of CHVs in three different parts of Kenya: rural communities in western and eastern Kenya, and a vast urban slum in the middle of the country. This has given me the opportunity to ensure that the CREME material will be applicable throughout the country. After completing the three “test” classes, two wonderful collaborations developed to enhance this work. First, Rev. Wim Mauldin joined my team. He is a retired American Baptist minister, veteran community