Gorkha Learning For Life

After a week of daily lessons in first aid, provided by Pam Nolan, the week finished with a test and certificates for attending the course and passing the test that Pam set for the staff. At times Pam was working with an interpreter, to deliver the course. For the final test Pam had the questions written in both English and Nepali, she also read the questions for those unsure. A big thank you goes to Pam for providing these important lessons and her local church that provided funding for a first aid kit in every classroom.

Here you see Pam sorting out a child with a painful ear infection. You can read more about Pam’s visit on our volunteer’s page.

Using a book from the Oxford Reading Tree scheme, Den painted a picture of a child falling off of his bike and then a picture of the child in hospital.

	The penultimate job for Den and Reg in the new clinic room was to put up a notice board and then on the board Nell arranged some health posters and Nepali leaflets to promote amongst other issues; healthy eating, helping the elderly, contraception and new baby advice.
DenEdwards and Reg Gray, having enjoyed a very warm welcome and puja, set to work cleaning out the room, washing down walls and then painted them white. Nell Edwards, Christine Gray and Pam Nolan went off to buy a cupboard to store all the goodies in that Pam had collected from various friends in England. This then required a sherpa to carry it up the side of the mountain to the school. Nell did suggest that as it was for the clinic Pam should carry it, but she wasn’t having any of that. Can’t understand why!!! The cupboard arrived and was put into the newly painted clinic. Next Den and Reg thought it would look better if they could buy some lino for the floor. When the lino arrived they set to cutting and fitting. Just as Reg was about to move the cupboard, Nell walked in and told Reg to move back straight away. There on the wall was one of Reggie’s least favourite companions a rather large spider!
	Now in 2004 our clinic offers advice and training in basic health care, for example, teaching mums to sterilise equipment used for baby, healthy diet and the importance of giving additional water when children are suffering from diarrhoea. Here you can see children lining up for our first TB inoculations to be given at the school.
In 2003 Den and Nell had a meeting with ‘The Youth for the Environment’ to discuss the clinic. They explained the difficulties they had with financing the clinic, so we decided to take on the funding of this much needed monthly clinic school at our school.
	We cover the costs of a nurse, a health visitor and medicines for our monthly clinic. Here you can see the clinic running outside the school on the veranda. (A big of a glorified name for a slab of concrete, but it’s a great place to get some shade.) Here you can see Rashmee, our nurse, providing medicine for a sick child.
This picture on the right shows where the first clinic we visited was being held. First of all there was just this tree with a flat space underneath it, locally known as a ‘Chowtara’. We were amazed to see the space slowly transformed into a busy clinic.
	The first time we visited a village clinic it was under a tree. There was just a tree with a flat space underneath it! We were amazed to see the space slowly transformed into a busy clinic. Next local people brought along mats for the floor. Medicines, staff and then very quickly mothers and toddlers arrived.
Here you see the clinic in full swing. The health worker has sterile needles, along with ampoules of medicine, ready in the cooler for use We are encouraging parents who sign up at the school to attend the clinic as well. Ram, one of our teachers gathers information on expectant mothers and encourages them to register with the clinic.
	As you can see from the picture babies are weighed in a cloth, which is hooked onto scales and hung from a tree. At the school this is hung from the school building. We plan to get some baby weighing scales and other practical resources as we build it up. As soon as our next floor is complete, the infant classes will move into the new building and this will leave us a room free for the clinic.