The
MSOLA had opened a community at Wamaza, in the eastern part
of Congo, a region that had suffered a lot during the post
independence wars and rebellions.
They tell us how, since 1970, they went about to discover
the needs and to foster the collaboration of the population.
We took
time to listen to the people and to help them to express
their needs. The main desires expressed were a " club
"for the women to learn how to sew and to keep a house
and a dispensary and a maternity. The sleeping sickness
was emptying the surrounding villages.
By taking
care of the sick brought to the mission I have discovered
the pathologies of the region and the urgent need of health
education and preventive medicine. We needed some buildings
to receive the patients, so we asked the collaboration of
the population. They made the bricks and they brought wood
to burn them. In that way it was " their " dispensary
and " their " maternity.
Soon
I discovered the difficulties the women had to come to the
prenatal consultation. Seeing that some had to walk 30 to
50 km. (Some came even from 100 to 150 km). Even if they
considered this a kind of holiday away from their fields
and an occasion to meet other women and to have news…
we decided to make the best of it… We organized a series
of 8 lessons touching the problems we met at the dispensary
: pregnancy, malaria, intestinal worms, injuries, nutrition,
newborn tetanus, TB, If at each pregnancy they would follow
3 to 5 lessons, after 2 to 3 pregnancies, they would have
followed the whole program. Often the women passed their
newly acquired knowledge to their friends. They could in
that way help to fight certain sickness !
We
kept a system of cards by village. That allowed us to know
the impact of a certain number of women in changing the
mentality and the health attitudes in the village.
In order
to reach a larger number of women, , a monthly consultation
with vaccinations and education was established in 3 big
surrounding villages, a distance of about 30 km from Wamaza.
After some years we had the joy of seeing that there were
no more cases of cerebral malaria among children, and that
the number of cases of umbilical tetanus and death caused
by measles diminished remarkably.
Together
with the preventive medicine and education that accompanied
all the consultations, Sr. Nelly ( a social worker) sensitized
men and women and involved them in activities to improve
the sources of disease and habitats, to eliminatethe stagnant
waters and to clear the bush of the tsetse fly causing the
sleeping sickness.
Health
and development aspects were dealt with together. The "Health
Center", the" Women Promotion Center " andthe
"Development Committee " worked together to improve
the health and the life conditions.
To undertake
all this, we needed collaborators. I began to give some
medical courses to those who worked in the clinicand in
the maternity. They did not know even how to read. There
was a small "Adventist" clinic, and I had noticed
that thediagnoses of the two nurses working there were not
always exact. So I invited them to join the lessons, what
they did. It was the ecumenism in life!
A secondary
school, and a dispensary is all that is needed so that a
village becomes an important town! Other services were organized
to answer urgent needs: tracking TB patients and caring
for them... and a house to welcome the more serious cases,
child consultation for a follow-up of the vaccinations,
etc. Truly, the wild mustard was becoming a large edible
plant!
After
the beginnings of progress which lasted some years, the
region then, experienced a gradual erosion of its roads,
due to the disruption of the situation in the country, and
with time, the population became impoverished, in spite
of theirfertile earth and continued labor. They hardly managed
to sell their products: cassava, rice, palm oil, peanuts,
cotton....
Since
1997, the region has experienced again the devastation of
war, and the people are often forced to hide in the bush.
As a consequence, the harvests are lost, and there is much
suffering and misery.
Sr.
Gisèle Bellemare, MSOLA
R.D. of
Congo
