By Gillian Eckert | Co-President
The GlobeMed chapter at Penn State ended its year with many exciting events. Such events included our 6th Annual Global Health Conference, the 2013 GlobeMed Global Health Summit, and most importantly, our annual trip to visit our partner organization, ACUDESBAL, in El Salvador. Five members within our chapter were given the wonderful opportunity to meet ACUDESBAL and experience the rich culture of Bajo Lempa. The five interns stayed with three women that work in the Amando Lopez daycare in which we mobilized funds towards the nutrition project. We were greeted with open arms, smiling faces, and an eagerness to begin work towards our mission of implementing solutions to improve the health and sustainability of the three different communities in the Bajo Lempa area.
While on ground, we were able to assess the growth of all 160 children that we support through our nutrition project by measuring and recording heights and weights and comparing this data to that of last year’s. In addition to the organic garden portion of our project to increase self-sustaining agriculture, we have extended our efforts to improve the dental hygiene within the community. Not only will each daycare receive three yearly visits from a nutritionist, but they will also receive three yearly visits from a dentist to ensure each child has adequate dental care.. In our visits, we have noticed that very few people had little to no access to such health care. Providing dental care will ensure that each child will have the necessary supplies to maintain dental health and prevent any issues that can be severely detrimental to his or her health in the future.
Each year, our chapter works towards build onto the projects that we have already established. We firmly believe that physical activity is an essential part to one’s health alongside with nutrition. With that said, physical activity is a component that we are looking forward to incorporating within our project. Soccer is a favorite past time in Central and South America, and we intend to fund a soccer club for both the daycare children and the secondary school children within the three communities that we work in. We are very much excited for the future of GlobeMed at Penn State, ACUDESBAL, and the positive changes that will result from our efforts towards improving the health and well-being of the Bajo Lempa population.
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
