Success for Awamaki Health can be measured on a tangible scale with donations of medical supplies, money, or statistical proof of impact. However it is the individual successes that are the most rewarding and create the largest impact for our volunteers and patients alike. Even more exciting are the extent of which these successes are felt, as they are never limited to one program, or one individual. The mission of Awamaki is to improve the social well being of the greater Ollantaytambo communities and we truly believe Awamaki Health embodies this. While this list is not all encompassing, we invite you to read a sampling of our success stories, as they too will inspire you.
Our Recent Individual Impacts
Recently during a visit to a rural mountain community I learned one of the women in Awamaki’s Weaving Cooperative was sick. After talking with her, I discovered she had been sick for a month. She had been diagnosed with a urinary tract infection, but had stopped taking the medication as it made her feel ill and she hadn’t been informed about how to properly take it. Since then, her condition had worsened significantly. Convincing her she needed medical attention, we took her immediately to a clinic three hours away only to discover she not only had a urinary tract infection, she had also developed typhoid fever, giarrdia, and vaginitis. One month later, she was finally recovering from her illnesses. - Keri Baker, Awamaki’s Health Coordinator
It is stories such as this that affirmed the need for Awamaki’s mobile health unit and system of community health promoters . Had this woman’s initial illness been treated much more effectively, she wouldn’t have been so sick for two months, and wouldn't have required her to travel six hours round-trip for effective medical attention. (cuatable)
Other Individual Successes:
- Purchasing a special made shoe for an individual who contracted Polio as a child which left him with legs different in length.
- Assisting with the purchase of a wheelchair for a little boy whose family who could not afford one.
- Providing a hearing impaired boy with hearing aids, which allowed him to hear clearly for the first time in his life.
- Adapting a wheelchair to better fit a patient.
- Assisting a young girl with Down Syndrome to gain enrollment into a school for kid's with special needs.
- Making mud bricks to raise the floor of a house to increase accessibility for a patient to get in and out of her house.
- Providing diapers for a boy with developmental disabilities whose family cannot afford them.
- Building a wheelchair ramp to provide accessibility for a family to move their little boy in and out of the house.
Community Impact
Sanitation:
The sanitation practices at the posta were a significant source of concern when Awamaki started placing volunteers at the clinic. Despite the high volumes of patients seen at the clinic a recent cleaning effort uncovered that its walls had not been washed in more than five years. Children waiting for their consults commonly dump everything from cups of jello to the contents of their bladders onto the floor of the clinic, and yet, the floors were only being mopped once every couple of days. The lack of sanitation practices at the clinic was no result of some bizarre cultural difference. Rather, the clinic simply does not have enough resources to hire full-time cleaning staff. Awamaki currently pays the two guards of the clinic an additional salary of 200 Soles (about $60 USD) a month to take on janitorial duties. They now perform a cleaning effort consisting of mopping the floors and cleaning consult rooms twice a day. This project has been facilitated by the generous support of New Jersey’s Mount Hebron Middle School, House 3, which is sponsoring Awamaki Health during the 2010-2011 school year.
Víveres:
Ollantaytambo’s clinic hosts a constant rotation of nursing and medical interns from Cusco, who live at the clinic for the duration of their placement. These interns are often some of the most hard-working individuals at the posta, on call on a 24 hour basis by virtue of living in their workplace. They consistently offer a compassionate and friendly demeanor to patients and volunteers alike, and go out of their way to make us feel welcomed at the clinic. Neither wages nor living expenses are provided during their placement at the clinic, and as students they often live on an exceedingly tight budget. Awamaki provides a monthly donation of $50 USD worth of víveres- basic food supplies including oil, rice, sugar, eggs, etc.- for the interns to consume while living at the clinic.