I haven't talked much about why I'm in Sudan, but I'll give the quick overview. There has been a major management overhaul for a variety of reasons in the South Sudan office. It's also a big office, with 20-22 expats at any given time and 450 national staff, running 10-11 programs worth more than $10 million dollars (this fluctuates a bit from month to month. We have a couple of particularly large projects, three of which I am focusing on improving the monitoring and evaluation of while here--the people who gave us all that money (US Agency for International Development, the US Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, the European Commission Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection, the UK Department for International Development, among others) want to know that we're achieving what we said we would and (more importantly, in my opinion) my organization wants to know how we're doing, what we can do better now and next time (this is a blog entry of its own someday).
One of these big projects is called the Sudan Health Transformation Project (SHTP).
It's funded by USAID, in collaboration with the Government of South Sudan, through an agency called JSI Research, which in turn gave money to a number of different NGOs to implement different parts of it in different areas. It's intended to increase access to health, water and sanitation services for women, children and families across South Sudan. My organization is part of ensuring continued delivery and expansion of primary health care services in Tambura (red arrow) and Malakal (blue arrow).
I came to Tambura to visit some of the clinics we are working with. We have a total of 21 clinics spread out over an area and given the state of the roads I'm obviously not going to get to all of them, but today I was able to visit 3 plus the Tambura Hospital, where we have an HIV program separate from SHTP.
Here are the three clinics.
These are all primary health care units (PHCUs), the smallest in Sudan's hierarchy of care. They are staffed by two community health workers, a maternal/child health worker, a watchman and a cleaner. The community health workers have had about 9 months of training on identifying and treating basic health conditions (including assisting with childbirth) and when to refer to a higher level facility.
The facilities are basic, without electricity or running water, but have most of the essential drugs and tools to identify and treat the more common health problems--malaria, diarrhea, child malnutrition (it's an infant scale hanging in the picture right below), respiratory infections, antenatal care, etc.
Because there's no electricity, vaccinations can't be stored at the clinics. Instead, they are brought from Tambura once a month in coolers with ice packs. It was a vaccination day at the second clinic we went to and women with their children were lined up out front waiting.
Whew, off to bed after a long day. More tomorrow. Until then, these two sweet faces...
This is maybe one of the cutest things I have ever seen. This kid means business with the water pump, boots and all.
And for my friends who love cats (you know who you are), I found this kitten while getting an ice-cold (well, for Africa it was ice-cold, elsewhere tepid might be a better word). I don't like cats, but this is pretty freakin' cute. And it didn't try to headbutt me, either.
One of these big projects is called the Sudan Health Transformation Project (SHTP).
It's funded by USAID, in collaboration with the Government of South Sudan, through an agency called JSI Research, which in turn gave money to a number of different NGOs to implement different parts of it in different areas. It's intended to increase access to health, water and sanitation services for women, children and families across South Sudan. My organization is part of ensuring continued delivery and expansion of primary health care services in Tambura (red arrow) and Malakal (blue arrow).
I came to Tambura to visit some of the clinics we are working with. We have a total of 21 clinics spread out over an area and given the state of the roads I'm obviously not going to get to all of them, but today I was able to visit 3 plus the Tambura Hospital, where we have an HIV program separate from SHTP.
Here are the three clinics.
These are all primary health care units (PHCUs), the smallest in Sudan's hierarchy of care. They are staffed by two community health workers, a maternal/child health worker, a watchman and a cleaner. The community health workers have had about 9 months of training on identifying and treating basic health conditions (including assisting with childbirth) and when to refer to a higher level facility.
The facilities are basic, without electricity or running water, but have most of the essential drugs and tools to identify and treat the more common health problems--malaria, diarrhea, child malnutrition (it's an infant scale hanging in the picture right below), respiratory infections, antenatal care, etc.
Because there's no electricity, vaccinations can't be stored at the clinics. Instead, they are brought from Tambura once a month in coolers with ice packs. It was a vaccination day at the second clinic we went to and women with their children were lined up out front waiting.
Whew, off to bed after a long day. More tomorrow. Until then, these two sweet faces...
This is maybe one of the cutest things I have ever seen. This kid means business with the water pump, boots and all.
And for my friends who love cats (you know who you are), I found this kitten while getting an ice-cold (well, for Africa it was ice-cold, elsewhere tepid might be a better word). I don't like cats, but this is pretty freakin' cute. And it didn't try to headbutt me, either.
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