IRS is not what I thought

I am swamped with data analysis from the research during the past few weeks, and I am in the midst of preparing for our upcoming week-long workshop (we'll be using the findings from the research to develop appropriate messages targeting the communities). BUT I wanted to share with you a few photos from the past few days (this may be it for a while, until I am un-swamped!):

First of all, due to limited staff availability I was tapped to attend the annual IRS launch in a nearby health district. (I admit that it was a little tough to be pulled away from my desk and workload...but this is for the team!) At first I thought, IRS? What? But here, IRS stands for Indoor Residual Spraying, and is part of the (US) President's Malaria Initiative (PMI) to reduce malaria incidence in countries where malaria is endemic. (Rwanda is one of those countries.) The Rwandan Ministry of Health also has a malaria-reduction program, so together the governments have aggressively been tackling the problem. IRS is one component of the approach used to reduce malaria incidence here; it's pretty self-explanatory, i.e., homes are sprayed with an insecticide, so mosquitoes carrying the malaria virus are killed when they land on walls that have been sprayed. The IRS program is one example of our US tax dollars at work, and it is exciting to report that since 2005, malaria prevalence here in Rwanda has been reduced by 40%! In addition, while only a year ago 40% of overall caseloads in the health centers were related to malaria, today only 15% of health center caseloads can be attributed to malaria. Yay!! This means fewer child deaths too, of course, as the majority of malaria deaths in Rwanda occur in children 10 and under.

Here are a couple of photos of the event yesterday, which included a big ceremony and then the inaugural house-spraying (pictured). While the chemical spray (a DDT derivative) is harmless to humans once it's been sprayed (and it's environmentally safe, for those of you who wondered), it's still toxic while being sprayed, so the sprayers are well-protected:



Here's the house that was sprayed:



Secondly....this is a random shot from last week, out in Nyamasheke. There was a huge vaccination campaign in Rwanda last week, in fact. You will be happy to note that twice a year the government has been sweeping the country, vaccinating every child, administering Vitamin A and Mebendazole (anti-worm medicine), and counseling families about family planning methods. Here are moms and children proudly displaying their vaccination cards:



Finally, the President of WR is here in town, staying at Phil and Becca's, and the other night some WR-Rwandan staff were over for dinner. Becca decided to serve Chinese food, for fun, and the staff learned how to use chopsticks. Some had never used them before, and they were very fast learners (they didn't want to eat with their hands!):



Talk to you again soon, I hope...I'll do my best to keep in touch here! Hope all's well back home....

PhotoVoice (thanks, Interior!)

I was going to write about culture shock today, but I think I'll leave it till later. In case you wondered if I ever experience culture shock here, I do....and as I recently came to realize, sometimes I don't even realize it! But maybe that will be tomorrow's post.

Today, I want to share how the PhotoVoice activity has been going at Baraka's church.

PhotoVoice is a community development tool I learned about while earning my MPH. The activity itself is simple: send small teams of community members (usually youth) out into their local communities with disposable cameras. Instruct them to take photos of both the needs they see in their communities, and the strengths in their communities (also known as community assets).

This is a quick tangent (if you prefer to track the main point of this blog entry, please skip to the next paragraph, where the main point continues!): whenever I see the word "asset," I have to smile, because it reminds me of Bear. This is because one of the first movies we went to together was the third Bourne movie (Ultimatum? or Supremacy? I can never quite keep them straight) where one of my favorite lines was, "Eliminate the asset." And now I can't see or write or say the word 'asset' without thinking of that movie, and then thinking of Bear, and then smiling. It's like a little gift from God, that word.

So. Back to the main point. Where were we? Assets. (Smile.) After the youth take photos of the strengths and assets (smile) in their community, the photos are developed and handed back to the teams. The teams then use their photos to create a presentation about the needs (and assets!) they discovered in their community in the course of taking the photos, and then all the teams share their presentations with one another. Finally, the groups brainstorm together ways that they can help meet the needs in their community (using their community's assets[!], where possible).

There are layers of purpose to the activity: besides just a tool to raise awareness and reach out to serve the local community, the activity is also designed to empower young people to believe they can make a positive difference in the world around them.

We did the PhotoVoice activity together in Baraka's church this past month (while I was home on weekends I helped introduce and facilitate the activity to a group of young adults, and while I was gone during the weeks, they forged ahead, taking photos, creating presentations, etc.). Right now, we are at the brainstorming stage; the young adults have finished presenting their photos to one another and are now thinking and taking time to pray (their suggestion!) about what needs God would have them to prioritize in their community, because they discovered a lot of different needs.

I want to thank the Interior adult fellowship at Ev Free Fullerton for providing the disposable cameras for this project....you have played an important role in a project that is still growing, here in this Rwandan community. Special thanks to Baraka who didn't think twice about doing all the translating necessary in order for the project to go forward. And thank you all for your continued prayers, that God would continue to use the young adults in this church to impact the world around them and make a positive difference in the lives of their neighbors. I feel certain that God smiles at this, as He sees these wonderful, motivated, and amazing young people being light to a dark world.

Here's a photo of the young adults at the first meeting:


Here are a few shots of some of the teams, with their cameras. Each of the groups had a team leader and they each had a team name (I don't have the list of team names with me, but they had names like "The Good Samaritans" and "The Five Brothers")







Here are a few shots of the teams presenting their photos to one another:







The needs that the young adults identified in their community ran the gamut. One group took this photo, explaining that this was an unmarried woman who had three children, by three different men. All she wanted out of life was to find another man and have more children. The group identified "family planning" as the need, stating that it wasn't good to birth children you couldn't care for, but they also understood that this woman was looking for love in all the wrong places. Understanding the love of God through Jesus' love for her could dramatically alter this woman's whole pursuit in life:



Another group identified the reaaaaaally dusty main road as a big community problem:



Still another saw that child labor was a big issue:


Other needs listed were: weeds everywhere, lack of care of grounds/property, drunkenness, young children taking care of even younger siblings, street children (b/c of single mothers), one-room home (for 7 children plus the goats), men over-eating while their hungry children stood behind and watched, two men fighting while others stand around to watch and clap, wasting food instead of giving it to others who are hungry, no graves for the poor -- just for the rich, too much food of bad quality, a local beggar who is dirty and eats anything, local people who have disabilities, smoking, no latrines, malnutrition, stagnant water that encourages the mosquitoes, cooking from dirty pots, inadequate facilities for pre-school, and mis-use of water by those who have too much of it.

The assets (smile, sigh) in the community were: kids in the community playing sports together, kids coming to church together, small businesses succeeding in the community, children washing themselves, and children working well together to solve problems.

Thanks again for your prayers of support....I am looking forward to seeing how God will be using the young adults at Baraka's church to address some of these needs that they have identified. During our last meeting, we talked about how God Himself, and His love and power, were HUGE assets(!)....much opportunity lies ahead to change the world around them for the better. :)

Back in Kigali....

Hi everyone! How've you been??! Hope you're all doing well and enjoying the last few weeks of summer. You might be like me, asking yourself where in the world the summer has gone to.... I think that's either a sign that we've been working too hard, or playing too hard....or maybe both! Here, I think it's been both.....

It's been a month since I've had time and/or working internet connection to blog! But thank you for your prayers while I've been out on the field for research...everything went fairly smoothly (and when it didn't, God opened other doors!). I had a great time getting to know the researchers better (there were 24 of them), and together we learned some interesting things about care-seeking behaviors for children, among Rwandans. I'll blog about it a little more later....I really want to share some of the things I learned with you all. We're analyzing data now to prep for the next step of the project.

While I've spent much of my time out on the field in the past five weeks, I have been 'home' in Kigali on weekends. However, three of those four weekends, my good friend Jennifer from the USA has been in town and so we were busy running around Kigali and getting caught up on life in general...it was great to have her here. :) She was a blessing with some research she's conducted here as well, in child abuse (some sad stories emerged from her research...I'll tell you about this later on, too). I've also been busy on weekends with a PhotoVoice activity with the young adults at Baraka's church....again, I'll write an update soon! But thanks again to Interior at Ev Free for facilitating this project...yay!!

Many of you have asked about Bear. He is doing great, working on language learning, enjoying mid-day tea and political debate with the locals (also a good way to work on language!), and starting in on some medical work and clinic supervision as well. He's got another wave of community development trainings coming up later on in the fall. Bear is adjusting really well to his new life there and his balanced perspective about serving and working overseas in his conditions really encourages me. (Not to sound like a broken record, but) more on that later, too.:) Thanks for your continued prayers for him.

Mainly I wanted to just give you an update that I'm back in Kigali. Hope you're doing well there, too! Thanks for your encouraging emails and notes; it is always great to hear from you. And just for fun, here's a shot of Jenn and me and the young adults from Baraka's church involved in PhotoVoice....they are great!