We Have a New Queen!
A few months ago, we were excited to share the news about the creation of a second bee colony. After two months of artificial multiplication (human intervention) and continuous monitoring of the bees’ behavior, we were able to confirm the presence of a new “queen.” The queen bee is the main component of the honey bee colony – without her, the colony would not subsist. We are grateful for the continued effort that our gardener extraordinaire, Eliezer, and his assistant, Hary Ibarra, have put into this program.
Bio-Intensive Workshops
Our main objective for the Healthy Eating Initiative has been to provide the members of the community with the necessary knowledge to work their unused lands and to improve their nutritional and economic quality of life.
We appreciate the outstanding support we receive from the parents of sponsored children. They visit the Clinic twice a month and help us with maintenance activities.
More families are now interested in starting their own home gardens. In March, we invited them to the Clinic for a workshop where they learned how to construct raised garden beds and create a garden design.
They also learned that excavating the soil is one of the most difficult practices due to the physical work it involves, but it is one of the most important principles of starting a garden. Thanks to this practice, the soil gets well-oxygenated and its structure is modified. As a result, the soil is purified and organic materials can be added, thus improving the fertility of the land.
Loose soil creates a deep-root system that provides healthy plants. Those same plants give us large, vigorous and tasty fruits like the ones we have at our Clinic!
Urgent Note: We are looking to start a North American Agricultural Partnership to help fund expansion of our community gardens, apiary, training and staffing. If you know anyone who would like to partner in this specific program in our community, email us here.
Improving Our Padrino Program
With the recent creation of our Nutrition Program, we have been very busy for the past couple of months. To start it off, we gathered all the beneficiaries to announce the exciting new benefit as part of our ongoing Padrino Program.
We took the opportunity to highlight the important role parents and teachers play in the success of their children when it comes to education. We also distributed school supplies during the meeting, as we usually do biannually. The children received backpacks, uniforms and shoes, as well as the food plan.
The children who are part of our Padrino Program also received their biannual medical and dental exams. On this occasion, they received deworming medicine to kill parasites that stop them from absorbing the vital nutrients children need to grow up healthy.
The Nutrition Program also includes a commitment from parents to help in repackaging the food and participate in activities related to the program.
A member of the community who had previously worked with soy protein was invited to offer the families a brief training on how to cook the various foods, since a lot of them were not familiar with the products. Moreover, a menu was created to fit the eating habits of the community and to make sure the children were enjoying their food.”
Volunteers Make a Difference in Our Community
In March, a large group of volunteers, organized by Jennifer Maxwell, visited our Clinic from Catholic University. Jennifer is a longtime friend of our Clinic, and our team wanted to recognize the time and effort she has dedicated every year arranging volunteering trips to our Clinic. We are proud and happy to announce that we recently named her our first “Ambassador Volunteer” for her continuous engagement in the goals of the Clinic and for always promoting and supporting our services. Congratulations, Jennifer!
We also received a wonderful volunteer, Marilyn Mosicki, from the University of Toronto. After five weeks of intense work, Marilyn completed 250 hours of practice required by her nurse practitioner post-graduate program. During her time at the Clinic, with the assistance of our medical and nursing staff, Marilyn was able to see 181 patients.
She also had the opportunity to learn more about the public health system in Nicaragua by preparing a project to counteract the need for public health in our area. We supported Marilyn in obtaining statistical data from the Nicaragua Ministry of Health (MINSA), as well as interviewing medical staff and people in the community in order to obtain diverse perspectives.
We are always delighted to receive specialists! This time, we welcomed dermatologist Dr. Walter Larsen. We were thrilled with the training he offered on common diseases in tropical areas and how to differentiate and treat them. The training was presented to six Clinic employees and Marilyn.
Dr. Larsen also assisted patients with free consultations. This was a great and rare benefit to the community members due to the high costs of these services and the long distances they need to travel to get to a dermatologist. A total of 45 people from different parts of the Rivas Department were able to benefit from his services.
In March, we started supporting MINSA authorities and local schools with first-aid training. Hary Ibarra, one of our ambulance drivers and emergency medical technicians, trained 32 people, including young students, teachers and members of the El Astillero community. We plan to continue offering this training throughout the year.
This impoverished community’s quality of life is improving
But it’s impossible for us to continue without your support.
Would you help us?
In recent years, we have been able to expand our capabilities to include preventive health education and promotion of healthy lifestyles. In addition to providing training at the Clinic, we have a growing outreach program that allows us to provide medical education to local school children. The diagram below shows what the Nica Clinic has been able to accomplish with your generous contributions…
We humbly ask you to please consider helping us with our services, projects and programs. If you have any questions or would like further information about anything, please do not hesitate to contact us.
In our previous newsletter, we shared the exciting news about the new land acquisition. The next step will be a capital raise to build a new building for expanded services and programs, like emergency X-ray, diagnostics and a small surgical room.
The Roberto Clemente Health Clinic is 100% supported by donations. We are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit registered in Maryland, so all donations are tax-deductible. We accept funds through PayPal. To donate, visit our website and select the program you would like to contribute to.
We wish you a lovely and enjoyable summer!
P.S. Check out our latest video! Click here and enjoy some beautiful scenes of our 2017 Clinic Health Fair which took place in January.
Sincerely,
Lorena Cernadas
U.S. Development Office
The Roberto Clemente Health Clinic
www.nicaclinic.org