I Love Night Swimming and Camp fires! :)

Friday Night - Out drinking, multiple bars, lots of dancing, lift home in the back of a pick-up truck. All 12 of us...
Sunday Night - Out drinking, braai-ing by the lagoon, lots of wine brewed at our new hippie-type friend's vineyard, night swimming, lift home in the back of a truck...
Monday morning - Attended a lecture on alcohol abuse and foetal alcohol syndrome.... !

Apart from the irony and the fact that i think some of the others were suffering with hangovers the lecture was really really good. The speaker was from Pretoria university and had been conducting research into Foetal Alcohol Syndrome, how it presents in pre-school children and the best methods for early diagnosis and intervention.
I did not realise how common it was for women to drink during pregnancy, especially in the Western Cape. some of the main risk factors are the poverty and the lack of other leisure activities as you might expect, but i also learnt that the western cape is particularly bad, partly due to the fact that historically (up into 30-40yrs ago) labourers on the wine estates would receive part of their wage payment as alcohol!! There is now a huge binge drinking culture and many people don't realise that when they drink during pregnancy, so does their baby, or don't understand the damage that alcohol causes to their child. Apparently even some health professionals advise that its fine to drink as much as you like!!!

Emily found herself a small child with FASD who had been abandoned by her mother and was now being cared for by an amazing woman who runs a home for abandoned and abused children. We very nearly ended up having a new member of our household but unfortunately had to give her back...

We all spent the afternoon working on the individual projects that we have been given as a part of our volunteering here. I spoke to Dayne a few days ago and she has basically given me free reign over setting up some sort of check-up system for the children in the township where EoA runs their swap shop. Every wednesday around 100 kids turn up with bags of recycling that they have collected and it gets weighed and exchanged for token for the shop. Here they can buy everything from clothes and toiletries to toys and books and even dogfood :) The idea is to set up a health check up for the kids whilst they are there too as very few of them get any sort of healthcare and it would mean we could refer them if needs be.

So far i've been researching child health practices and protocols to work out what sort of check ups to do, making a database, designing forms and thinking of ways to highlight children that are not doing so well so that we can refer them to a doctor. Its going to be such an amazing project when its done and hopefully it could even get rolled out across other townships and areas too! So much still to do though!
I've been asking the nurses at the hospital for their opinions and ideas, and the woman who spoke today too. She really knew her stuff about FASD and had a background in speech and language therapy so i asked her a few questions to help me with the child health clinic project - she was so helpful and not only gave me cues to look for when screening speech and hearing but also is sending me a checklist for checking for potential FASD.

I'm actually really excited about setting all this up - it could turn into a mobile clinic if all goes to plan and it will be a way to regularly screen the children for their health, development, HIV status and anything else that you can think of. The long long long term goal would be our own clinic or hospital too, that anyone could access - children, parents, adolecents, anyone. Its going to be amazing to be able to say that I helped start it all!

Back to working in the Plett Aid clinic tomorrow with Marissa and Emily and Emillie (The other Emily's friend that arrived today! Which brings us to a grand total of 10 :) )

People got tattoos today!!! Crazy pain seeking people! I think I'll stick to just photos and memories :)

written by  JL1 on January 25, 2011 from Knysna, South Africa
from the travel blog: African Travels
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