The Battle of the NCD's!

Belize has experienced over the last two decades, a significant burden by the incidence and prevalence of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD's), also known as chronic diseases. In addition, Cardiovascular Diseases in particular have been ranked among the leading causes of hospitalizations within the country of Belize. Education in regards to the risk factors and danger/warning signs, is essential to the prevention of these diseases. 

After a random late night thought, I began to discuss my idea with counterparts to see what their opinions were about it. The event idea was to somehow uniquely engage primary school students and them ultimately benefiting with an increase of knowledge. The solution... HAVE THEM COMPETE! There are four major NCD's that are prevalent in all six districts of Belize: Cardiovascular, Chronic Respiratory, Cancers, and Diabetes. Each of the four upper level classes that were selected to participate, were assigned one of the four major NCD's. Included in their assignment, was to develop a creative presentation as a class to cover sub-topics for their assigned NCD such as: prevention, risk factors, danger/warning signs, and treatment.

 

 

For a solid month, I was in and out of each class during their scheduled health class periods to assist them in any way possible. After each class had completed their beautiful posters and their creative presentations they were then judged on who had the most correct information, best public speaking, most creativity, presentation management and organization. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention what the prize was for the winning class- A Field Trip to the Belize Zoo!! It was time for the big day and with the collaboration between myself and local counterparts, this health educational event was successfully planned and implemented at the village primary school with the help of some fellow Belize Peace Corps Volunteers.

 

 

  

 

This event included the participation and patience of the entire school, which includes seventeen classes (450 students). A schedule was prepared in advance, that included all of the classes to rotate to each of the four student led classroom presentations and also four educational games/activities led by Peace Corps Volunteers that correspond to each of the four major NCD's that had been targeted. After the long day of presentations and games in the 100 degrees Belize heat, a class winner was announced for best overall presentation.. CARDIOVASCULAR!

 

 

I find this to be quite ironic since I had mentioned earlier that Cardiovascular Diseases are ranked the highest for leading causes for hospitalizations in the country of Belize. My outlook on that, is with it being ranked the highest in the country, the assigned class had done their absolute best to allow for the information and presentation to be as transparent as possible for their fellow schoolmates to comprehend. Though the event went amazingly as planned, the true results of this event are not noticeable until these children have reached adulthood and decide what type lifestyles they want to adapt. The children of this country and of this world are the future of everything, even including health statistics.

In short, education IS the major key to change.

It all starts with a smile...

As I am now entering my 5th month as a Peace Corps Volunteer, I have noticed some very positive experiences and a successful integration. My work time is split between working throughout the village with local counterparts and working in the village Primary School while co-teaching with teachers. I found this as one of my biggest challenges due to the fact that I don't have a degree in Primary Education nor do I have any experience in that field. In September, I anxiously attended the school years first general assembly where I introduced myself and explained what I would be doing while here for the next 2 years. When I went in front to speak to the roughly 500 children in attendance that day, I couldn't help but only to notice all the hundreds of smiles that I was looking at. The introduction ended with the children simultaneously saying "Thank you, Mr. Chase!". After hearing the enthusiasm and seeing the smiles on their faces, I knew that this was only the beginning to something great.

After meeting with the faculty and staff of the Primary School, a game plan was made on how I would incorporate my work into the classroom with the teachers. After meeting one-on-one with each of the 20 teachers, a schedule was then made of my rotation to each of the classes. Some of the teachers had mentioned to me that they wanted more arts and crafts included into their Health and Family Life Education classes. I couldn't think of a better way to start that off than with Worlds AIDS Day. The village Community Health Worker and myself went to 4 of the higher division classes to educate the children on simple things in regards to HIV/AIDS such as: modes of transmission, prevention, and how to support someone that is HIV positive. The students then had the opportunity to create their own flyer while helping raise awareness for HIV/AIDS. I was most surprised at creative quality that these children had and the inspirational quotes that they came up with. Some of these children literally went above and beyond for this short project.

This past week, I have been leading multiple classes on Gender Roles and Responsibilities. The children are being exposed to different group activities, specifically in which they are sharing what it is like in their homes and they see how different that it is not only globally, but also within their own country of Belize. Something that has literally meant the most to me thus far happened just this week, with a teacher pulling me aside after the class period expressing to me that before that day there were 6 children that he had never seen volunteer to present or speak up in front of the class, and that day all 6 of them did. Empowering children at a young age to overcome this barrier is very beneficial because they will be prepared for adulthood to make healthy decisions and risks, sustain their self-confidence, and the ability to work through their own challenges. It's amazing that even within a few months of encouragement and motivation, the children have already came out of their shell from hiding behind that smile.

After working daily in the school for quite a while now, all I constantly hear is "Mr. Chase!! Mr. Chase... Mr. Chase?!". These children are my fuel to maintaining my motivation and that is something that I will never get tired of.  Enjoy some pictures from my work in the Primary School!

The End to the Beginning

I can now say that I have successfully completed Pre-service training for Peace Corps Belize. It has been a very busy last three months thus why I haven’t written a blog post recently. During these past three months, I have improved with speaking Spanish while testing to the Intermediate level. Though I will be continuing my language learning and I will be having a language coach for the next few months to improve. There were a total of 4 health practicums in which we were responsible to prepare in groups for and be evaluated by upper level staff. These practicums included: Maternal and Neonatal Health, Prevention of Childhood Illnesses, Healthy Cooking Demonstration, and Community Health Fair. We were expected to implement and demonstrate each of these in our targeted language to the community.  I have got to experience the various different cultures of Belize with having “Culture Days” in which those involved traveling to four different parts of this beautiful country with my training group and Peace Corps staff to learn about their specific language, history, religious belief’s, and cultural norms. The four main cultures in Belize that I had the opportunity to learn more about are Mestizo, Kriol, Maya, and Garifuna. I find this as a huge advantage because recognizing that my site placement is diverse and consists of each of these different cultures within it, I will be more familiar about the norms for each of them and how to approach working with each of them. With that being said… It was revealed to me earlier in August that I will now be living in the village of St. Matthews until September 2017! I am more than excited to transition into this new village and call it my temporary home. After finding out my site placement, the following week a counterpart workshop was scheduled for each of us trainees and our future village counterparts. Counterparts that were in attendance to this first workshop were mostly community health workers, school principals, and nurses from each of the villages. After arriving three hours late to the workshop due to multiple flat tires on the bus transfer and Peace Corps staff vehicles, we met each of our counterparts and had the chance to discuss exactly what our roles will be while working in the community and schools.  That evening, we boarded buses with all trainees and counterparts, and then departed to our new villages for visit that lasted 4 days. During my visit to St. Matthews I stayed with the Sinturion Family, which will be my host family for the 2 years of my service. I feel as it was a fantastic match due to the fact that this family is very outgoing, loves to joke around and pull pranks on each other. Anybody who knows my family in the U.S. would agree that it should be a good match.  They had no problem at making me comfortable and feeling like I was part of their family. I had the opportunity to attend the staff orientation at the St. Matthews Government School where I will be teaching weekly health lessons. While it was great to meet all the teachers and staff, it was even better to have their support and the motivation that they have for me to teach at their school. It was beneficial to have tours of the village led by my community health workers and to also assist with home visits to the elderly and the ill. After the four days were up, then I headed back to the training site for 4 weeks where I anxiously awaited to finish language and technical trainings.  The final event that our training group was expected to do was to host a health festival in the village that we had completed our training at. This is something that us trainees worked together with the Peace Corps training staff to successfully advertise and carry out. Each of us chose a particular health topic that we then created ways of interactive learning and activities to make it more interesting toward children.  September 17, 2015 is a day I’ll never forget. Why? Because that is the day that I officially became a Peace Corps Volunteer for the Belize Health Cohort # 3. All of the stressful and overwhelming yet beneficial days/weeks with working on community projects, practicums, co teaching in schools, integrating into a Spanish speaking family and language/technical sessions are now worth it. I am now ready to embark on my own and begin my own Peace Corps experience. The next 3 months will mostly consist of observations and developing a plan of action for my service. I will be doing a communitywide assessment to identify the health needs and prioritize what needs to be implemented to result in a positive change.

Exploring Different Parts of Belize One Week At A Time

The start to my third week in Belize is approaching rather quickly. I have had the opportunity to visit both the northern and southern districts within the last week. It started off with a trip with my host family and extended relatives to one of the northern districts of Belize called Orangewalk. It was about a 2 ½ hour drive from the village I am currently living in to the ancient Mayan ruins of Lamanai. As we drove through a fairly large Mennonite and Amish village consisting of mostly Germans (of course we stopped and got some homemade ice cream), we then arrived to the gorgeous grounds of the ruins that were adjacent to the large salt-water lagoon filled with crocodiles (hints the name Lamanai which means submerged Crocodile)! After lunch was served under a batch-roofed hut by the lagoon we began our day touring the grounds, which consisted of 3 main temple ruins. The largest temple we ended up climbing to the top was over 30 meters high and had the most breathtaking view of the lagoon and overlooking the tropical rainforest. Very interesting to take into consideration knowing that this temple was constructed in 100 BC, and was abandoned in the Early Postclassical Period. We also saw another smaller temple that had an ancient Mayan face carved in it.  This was the perfect photo op to get some family pictures with both my host mom/sister and the rest of the family, which was a great feeling to now feel as part of their family. What an enjoyable weekend to bond with my family and pick up on some Spanish. As a part of our technical training we had a half-day session on the essentials of gardening. We first had a lecture from one of the current PCV’s who will be finishing up her service in September about her experiences with gardening. She helped us understand how to influence our future villages and host families on how to eat healthier and teach them how to grow vegetables and fruits at their home resulting in not only improving their diet but also save them money in the long run. We then worked together as a group to create two garden beds while setting and plowing it all by hand. It was much more difficult then expected but after a couple of hours we had our gardens set and planted to start growing. As many people know I’m not much of a gardener but this has given me a better outlook on doing it in the near future to help my future host family and village on how to improve their health. As for what is going on with Spanish classes.. They are coming along slowly but I’m improving, even daily. We are currently learning basic vocabulary and conjunction of regular/ irregular verbs and how to use them in conversations. Flashcards have recently become my best friend and are with me almost everywhere I go to practice. The week ended with our first Culture Day as a group and we traveled to the Southern District of Stann Creek to get a first hand experience on the Mayan Culture.  We visited the Mayan Culture Center where we got to learn many things about their prestigious culture. Some things we learned about were their historic dances, handmade instruments they make, what their homes mostly look like, and their religion. We also had the chance to get some hands on action where we got to make our own corn tortillas, carvings, Mayan print clothing stitching, make dark chocolate from hand grinding coco beans and adding coco butter to it resulting in making a chocolate bar and also making own coffee. From there we then went down the street meet a herbal healer for their area. The woman we met is well known around the country for being a healer but also for her amazing Mayan recipes known around the world. She informed us that traditional Mayans rely on herbs for healing rather then medication. She told us stories on which she has helped so many people over the last 12 years. Very interesting to realize that so many plants and things we overlook can have a totally different result if they are mixed together. She pointed out one type of leaf that is commonly used to tear into very small pieces and rub onto mosquito bites that are on the body. You can best bet that I took a few of the leaves and did exactly as she said since I have constantly had the bites since arriving in Belize. I can honestly say it did improve the bites within hours and I wasn’t feeling the constant itch. I may need to be finding these leaves out in the forest so I can stock up on them to use from now on! Well, another week down and I am learning new things everyday not only about the culture and language but also details on what type of work I will be doing starting in September following the Pre-Service Training. Enjoy the following pictures!