Just Like My Child » Volunteer Spotlight

The Guests Who Came to Uganda to Serve

Dena Lewerke — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:32:00 +0000

: We were happy to welcome our visitors last month who made an incredible contribution to the hospital and communities during their visit with Founder Vivian Glyck (L to R: Lidia Domagalska herbal supplement distribution; Dr. David Smotrich, gynecological/fertility specialist; Vivian Glyck, founder of JLMC; Dr. Puja Shah, dentist; Sister Ernestine Akulu, Bishop Asili Hospital Administrator; Jenny Hamel, video journalist)

: The staff and patients of Bishop Asili Hospital were very excited for the arrival of the fertility specialist, Dr. David Smotrich, and dentist for children, Dr. Puja Shah, signs were posted everywhere weeks ahead of time. This would also mark the official opening of the brand new dental clinic at Bishop Asili Hospital!

Dental Outreach

It’s hard to imagine growing up without ever receiving dental treatment — but this is so common in Uganda. Simple tooth decay can progress into life threatening disease when it goes untreated. Visiting dentist, Dr. Puja Shah and Dr. Jane, the new dentist at Bishop Asili, were able to spare countless children from pain and suffering, and they even saved a couple of lives in the process!

Dr. Jane is sure that having dental services available will empower the community to overcome these problems and this is why dental education and prevention from an early age is so important. I witnessed many adults and children coming into the clinic in pain and leaving happy. The children LOVED the training on how to brush and I really believe the attention they received will always remind them to take care of their teeth.

: Bishop Asili now has its very own dentist and dental clinic! Dr. Jane (left) is happy to be our new dentist at Bishop Asili and was grateful to have Dr. Puja Shah here to help set up and treat her first patients. Dr. Puja brought the equipment and tools needed to officially start the clinic as well as dental outreach teaching aids and giveaways of toothbrushes, toothpaste and floss.

: Many children lined up outside the dental clinic each day to be treated by Dr. Puja and Dr. Jane. While they waited they learned how to brush and floss and why it is important. Some children came everyday to watch and practice brushing. The children were happy to have their teeth cleaned and sealed and extracted, services they had never had access to before.

: She’s finally smiling! This little girl came in with severe pain and it was evident from the sad look on her face. When Dr. Puja removed the tooth she realized that the infection had reached her gland, and the hospital was able to help her, a condition that left untreated would have been life threatening. We were so happy to see her smile! So many children came in with painful toothaches and left happy after visiting the dentists.

: Dr. Puja and Dr. Jane conducted dental outreach in several schools throughout the region. The children were very excited and told us that they will continue to practice the brushing and flossing techniques they learned. Here Puja provides a lesson to children at our newest school building project, in the remote village of Magogo, they love their new toothbrushes! Dr. Jane said that many people are coming in for cleaning due to this education.

Professional Video Journalist

: Jenny Hamel, a reporter with Channel 6 in San Diego, shot ten hours of video during the course of the trip which she is in the process of editing into a video journal of the visit. Jenny is so great at engaging and interacting with everyone and the children especially loved her and the camera! Pictured here at St. Joseph Magogo the newest school building project.

Herbal Supplements

: Lidia provided valuable herbs to patients to also help with malaria, typhoid and a number of other serious health issues common to Uganda

: Herbal supplements were provided to patients on clinic day for HIV/AIDS. These supplements will be helpful in keeping up nutrition and dealing with harsh side affects of ARV drugs.

“Women’s” Specialist

When Dr. David Smotrich of www.LaJollaIVF.com decided he wanted to come to Uganda to work with Just Like My Child, he didn’t imagine that women would want to consult with him on his specialty — fertility. Yet not being able to have a baby in Uganda is like not being able to have a baby anywhere else — it’s heart wrenching and wrought with sadness and despair. In addition, since childbirth is equated with wealth and success for the man, there’s a difficult social stigma that’s attached to infertility for a woman.

While patients sought Dr. Smotrich’s advice for many gynecological issues, many women struggling with infertility lined up when they heard that Dr. David Smotrich would be visiting. One major cause of infertility is damage to fallopian tubes due to infection. This problem can often be fixed by a simple surgery, but the proper diagnostic equipment must be available. Dr. Smotrich provided the staff with many helpful tips while consulting with patients, as well as donating much needed surgical supplies. Dr. Jude, Dr. Charles and Sister Ernestine were particularly impressed with his positive outlook and innovative suggestions on how to use existing hospital resources to increase revenue and the offer to assist with the first ever hospital restaurant for patients and staff, the Smotrich Family Kitchen!

: Dr. Smotrich and Dr. Charles treat diagnose a patient using ultrasound. Patients love to see their baby through the ultrasound, but this machine is also critical for diagnosis and treatment of a number of other medical issues

: Dr. Smotrich attends a C-section, the most common procedure, the hospital performs 15 C-sections per month, most of them emergency. Prior to Just Like My Child’s partnership with Bishop Asili, women were turned away and often died. This C-section was performed on a young mother in extreme distress and when the baby was born it was not moving or breathing–we also held our breath as the team worked tirelessly to revive him

: The miracle baby! Music to our ears when the baby finally cried after far too many minutes of silence, thanks to the team of experienced midwives at Bishop Asili Hospital.

An Interesting Flight …

Vivian Glyck — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 14:57:58 +0000

Rev. Dekontee Panton, miracle worker to reform lives of many ex-child soldiers

Just met the most amazing man on the my journey from Liberia to Uganda. He got off the plane in Accra, Ghana.

He has coordinated the resettlement of hundreds of child soldiers in the Liberian civil war and shepherded them through the refugee camps.

This guy was the brightest white light I’ve met this whole trip. He’s got one boy whom he adopted at 15 who is now 21. He says he’s so bright and ambitious and he’s desperate to send him to U of Ghana for accounting. Total cost: 1K per year!!!!

Gonna help him figure out how to get it done. Feel free to contact him directly at Dekontee Panton dekopanton@yahoo.com.

Akware Judith

Dena Lewerke — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 20:00:00 +0000

December 18th, 2008Akware Judith has been teaching primary school in Uganda for nine years. She does an amazing job of engaging children in the classroom, which is unfortunately all to uncommon in Uganda. Judith is currently qualified to be a head mistress due to her determination to continue her studies during holidays when she isn’t teaching children. Judith is currently attending university in order to gain a masters level degree that will even further qualify her to gain promotion in higher district positions within the educational system in Uganda. Just Like My Child Foundation has agreed to pay for Judith’s university fees in exchange for a committment from her to act as head mistress of the Just Like My Child primary school in Katikamu for a minimum of two years.
Judith signed a service agreement this very day. I have every confidence that Judith will greatly influence the success of the first Just Like My Child school building project.

Bishop Asili Exercise Program

Dena Lewerke — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 20:00:00 +0000

December 16th, 2008Janka and Annika and I decided to start up an exercise program with the staff and sisters at Bishop Asili Hospital. The three of us run daily and people were always asking us if we would be interested in helping people to get in shape. There is a lot of stress, death and heart ache that happens daily in Uganda in addition to the poor diet that most people are consuming. We are hoping that this program will help to reduce stress, improve flexibility, develop coordination and raise the heart rate.

House Mates

Dena Lewerke — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 20:00:00 +0000

November 3rd, 2008

Left to right: Janka Rzepka , Tessa Davis, Annika Sill

Two volunteers from the German organization called Caritas Hildesheim, which is supported by the German government Weltwaerts program arrived at Bishop Asili Hospital today. They will be here working for the next nine months doing whatever they can to help at the hospital. They just finished their A levels in Germany and have a year off in between university to live abroad and learn more about what they’d like to learn as a vocation. They will be an extra much needed four hands at the hospital. I’m also looking forward to having house mates again.

Honoring Maria’s Entrepreneurial Bravery

Dena Lewerke — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 19:00:00 +0000

Maria is the care taker of the guest house that I live in on the Bishop Asili Hospital compound.

She is employed by the sisters at Bishop Asili Hospital. She has several children and an ex husband that doesn’t help her to take care of them. She recently became inspired to mobilize a group of four women together to work out a small micro-finance lending system. Every month they pool together 30,000 Ugandan shillings per person. They start out with two members of the group taking half of the money and then the following month the other two people take the money. This way they are able to have a larger pool of money to work with, so they can start a piggery or some other small project that will help them to generate income. Maria has also decided to open up a savings account for the first time in her life where she will put all of her extra money earned from tailoring work. She doesn’t want to be tempted to spend the money that she intends to use for her childrens’ schooling. She asked me to help her fill out the bank forms because her English isn’t fluent. I took a picture of her after signing her name. She was so proud! Another moment in Uganda that I won’t ever forget.

Farewell! How Nicholyn Touched My Life

Dena Lewerke — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 23:06:00 +0000

August 28th, 2008
Nicholyn Chang left Uganda today. She will spend a few days in Dubai with friends before heading to Malaysia for a few weeks to see her family and friends there. After, she will head back to San Diego to start her final year of graduate school at the University of California. The work that Nicholyn managed to accomplish with her short time in Uganda will continue to benefit Bishop Asili Clinic indefinitely. I had such a good experience working with Nicholyn. I learned so much about the challenges and benefits of graduate school, a ton about development work and a great deal about Nicholyn’s home country of Malaysia. I will miss Nicholyn desperately, but I know we’ve spent this time establishing a solid foundation for a lifetime friendship. As Ugandan children will scream at the heals of your feet. “BYEEEEEEEEEE!”
http://www.justlikemychild.com/

Health Survey Hiccups & Their Valuable Lessons

Dena Lewerke — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 19:00:00 +0000

August 8th, 2008
(Left: Allen of the Community Outreach Team Right: Patient of BA clinic)
Nicholyn and I spent the morning with John and Allen of The Bishop Asili Community Outreach Team practicing asking the survey questions for the Mosquito Net Baseline survey. After interviewing several people we discovered that a few of the questions were difficult for people to understand, so now we will be able to rewrite them in a culturally sensitive and understandable way before going out into the community to conduct the real survey.

(Left to Right: Salango of the BA HIV Post Test Club, John of the Community Outreach Team & Nicholyn Chang)
Left: Allen, Right: Patient of Bishop Asili Clinic)
We also sat in on a practice focus group discussion led by John and Allen, which is a means by which to get feedback on the same issue, but using a different forum. Nicholyn describes it as triangulation, which is a strategy used to ensure accuracy in data collection.

Afterwords, John and Allen came by to review the practice session that we conducted. We went over all of the questions and talked about all of the necessary changes. Nicholyn took notes so that she can make changes to the document before we conduct the actual survey. It was really interesting to learn what kinds of changes needed to be made (e.g. Malaria should be referred to as “Fever”) in order to ensure that average villagers will understand the questions being asked of them. We gave John and Allen a great deal of praise for all of their hard work. Allen had other commitments to a family member in Kampala, but he stayed in Luwero for the day to help us with this practice survey and for no compensation.
http://www.justlikemychild.com/

Visitors

Dena Lewerke — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 19:00:00 +0000

August 4th, 2008
(Left to right: Nyangoma Rachael, Mary Goss)
Our good friend Doctor Jude has gone to Gulu for his residency and the Italians have gone back home, but Nicholyn and I are not short of company. Today, Mary Goss of New Jersey, a long time supporter of Bishop Asili has come to check out some projects that the diocese in Trenton supports through the relationship they have established at the catholic church here in Luwero Town. She will remain in Uganda until the end of August.
http://www.justlikemychild.com/

Hey Jude

Dena Lewerke — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 19:00:00 +0000

July 26th, 2008

Today we had a going away party for Dr. Jude because he is going to Gulu in the northern part of Uganda for his residency for one year before returning to Bishop Asili to serve as a doctor for at least three years. Our lovely melting pot of house mates ate a delicious meal followed by a cake. Sister Ernestine brought a potent wine made from the local liquor Waragi and passion fruits. Jude gave a great speech and we all sang “Hey Jude” instead of “He’s a Jolly Good Fellow”! It was a wonderful evening that won’t soon be forgotten. Jude will be missed.
http://www.justlikemychild.com/