By Susan Smith | Director
Dear Friends,
While we continue to keep an eye on the occurence of covid in the community, thankfully that has mostly disappeared, only to be replaced by dengue and dysentry. These illnesses trace back to the village being in the throes of a sewage drainage crisis because of a system that was never completed and now, is mostly broken, allowing "black water" to run down the streets. Promoters are organizing - getting signatures on a petition, good photos of the situation, an information sheet on the dangers of open sewage, and names and emails of those responsible for the system's inadequate design and its construction.
I attribute much of their organizing abilities back to the pandemic. When faced with life-threatening circumstances, and the urgent need to respond to almost all families completely losing their income, the young women stepped up, learned quickly, and jumped into action: preventive street-by-street, house-by-house education - DONE; registration of those in acute need of food with ten distributions of food packages to 700+ families - DONE; condolesence visits to all families losing a loved one (visits that continue today, creating social capital) - DONE; systematic registration of all deaths (a task that also continues today, an important source of basic data) - DONE; active help given over months to a capable young woman who then achieved and maintains the position of civil registrar - DONE; supportive treatment of many people feeling ill - DONE; and, accurate maintenance of supplies and records - DONE.
The promoters now apply the skills learned during the pandemic to all other education, health and environment programs. This is the silver lining on what could have been a real disaster, but wasn't. Their work is worthy of praise!
We are grateful for all the moral and financial support given during our covid19 response. Thank you to our kind and generous donors - it was only possible to do because of you.
As always, Susan and the Atzin team
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By Susan Smith | Director
By Susan Smith | Director
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