In Lesotho, Riders for Health, an NGO, has implemented a transport system to enable health workers to provide healthcare to those living in rugged, inaccessible, beautiful mountains. Riders provides training, maintenance, and motorbikes and 4x4 trucks, and looks to someday manage the entire health transport system under the Ministry of Health.
In Pemba, one Dr. Arie de Kruijff has developed an SMS notification system to facilitate leprosy notifications and accessibility to disease statistics within the Cabo Delgado province. All from a hobby spent during his spare time, aside from raising a family with a wife and three thriving children and heading the Leprosy Mission in Mozambique.
And right in Cape Town, an NGO called Kheth'Impilo has set up a programme to recruit and train individuals from impoverished communities to become pharmacist assistants, thus increasing pharmaceutical clinic capacity while also stimulating economic activity in those communities.
When I stepped off the plane in Cape Town, coming off of 10 hours of traveling from Pemba to Maputo to Jo-burg, I was exhausted and in dire need of a shower.
But the journeys have been incredible.
On a map, Lesotho looks like a small, resource-limited country, completely surrounded by South Africa and struggling to combat HIV and poverty.
These things are true. But it sure is beautiful:
Not too long ago, I was sitting in a Michelin starred restaurant in Budapest with three fun friends. A few months later, I found myself in a completely impoverished village, without running electricity or water, that no tourist could ever dream of reaching (without the help of, say, Riders):
And would have never foreseen this either (in Africa!):
Though I suppose it is winter in the mountains.
A few days after returning to Cape Town, I set off again, this time for Pemba, an idyllic port town in northern Mozambique:
Arie's SMS system is really just a netbook and modem. After he showed me the system, we drove ~2-3 hours inland to Macomia, where I glimpsed what it was like to have to walk for kilometers for water, to live without electricity, to live in thatched huts in the bush. But I did also get to goof off with some kids with whose language I did not know, who did not know English, and with whom I took my very first selfie:
And I did witness how to treat leprosy, using holes in the ground, plastic bags, water, and community:
It was awesome. At one point, the health district supervisor we were working with introduced me to one of the villages and asked me to share a little bit about myself. "Eu não falo português." My Duolingo training only went so far -- I broke into Spanish. "Mi familia es de un grupo de islas en el océano pacífico, las Filipinas. Soy de los Estados Unidos. Y estoy aquí porque no tengo mucho dinero, pero quiero decir la historia de ustedes -- su historia -- al mundo."
The supervisor was translating for me. Everyone looked a little surprised -- then applauded. I felt so flattered.
As for Kheth'Impilo, I'll hold off on showing photos for now, since I've shown photos of Cape Town before.
The principal component of my work is doing case studies on each innovation I study. I interview health workers, patients, innovators, government officials, etc., then integrate that data with organizational reports and existing public health literature. Basically what I've been doing for years, yet totally different flavor. (Qualitative public health vs. quantitative basic science.)
But the other component is filmmaking. The idea is that to reach the public, we can best convey the story of each innovation through film. On each visit, I've been trained to use a basic camera and tripod to shoot the footage for short documentary-style films, three to five minutes each. It's been really cool. You can check out the films that I've contributed to here:
My favorite, Riders for Health in Lesotho:
The one I did solo in Mozambique:
And finally, Kheth'Impilo:
I'll write in more detail about the work later. In the meantime, you can check out more here: http://healthinnovationproject.org/
Will write more soon!
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