A New Year, New Updates from Public Health

As we begin a new school term, public health has many exciting new developments on the horizon. First off, we have hired a new Community Health Worker, Faith Mugambi. She has begun a two-week training period beginning Monday, January 13, 2014. She is learning about the anatomy and physiology of the eye as well as pathology and vision testing. Beginning in late February, or early March, she will become the newest addition to the mobile health clinic team in the field. She will be testing the visual acuity of pupils within the public school system and identifying those who need a referral for further treatment and/or eyeglasses. Many primary and secondary school children are at a disadvantage to their other peers in the classroom, simply because they cannot see the blackboard.

This intervention has the potential to improve the learning capacity and educational experience of so many children, eventually making them more learned, productive members of society as a whole. Next, we will be moving into the second phase of our water tank project. Beginning in March we’ll be installing large drinking water tanks and small hand washing tanks in an additional 45 schools. By the end of March over 39,000 children will have access to clean drinking water and hand washing facilities in school. The long-term goal is to cover all public primary and secondary schools in Maara District by the end of Summer 2014. These interventions are and will continue to drastically reduce the rate of gastrointestinal disease among school children in our community. Lastly, in the upcoming months, we will begin the recruitment process for a new public health coordinator. We are excited to welcome fresh, new, experience leadership to the public health team!

Written by Haylee Barbo, 2013-14 Public Health Fellow