Ending Extreme Poverty in the Congo

Are Maternal Deaths a 'Right to Life' Issue?

Yes, I think it should be a right.  But how do we make it so?  Where is Capt Picard when we need him.

via allafrica.com

Picture yourself in a room with 30 other women - knowing that one of you will die during pregnancy or childbirth. That's not a concept for a macabre TV show - unless it's reality TV.

A woman who conceives a child in sub-Saharan Africa is 45 times more likely to die during pregnancy and childbirth than a woman in developed countries. Over her lifetime, a woman in sub-Saharan Africa has a one in 31 chance of dying from pregnancy-related causes.

Those stark facts are a focus of a World Health Organization report released at the 126th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union that ended on Thursday in Kampala, Uganda.

Solar Entrepreneurs' Needed

There is a great opportunity for solar entrepreneurs in Africa and India.  Solar energy can be the oil industry in the developing world.  This developing world will never have a western world type electrical-grid.

But they have a need for electricity for business, development, health, and education.  Without electricity, the developing countries like Congo will remain in poverty forever.

via www.miller-mccune.com

Having seen well-intentioned but unsuccessful attempts to bring alternative energy to the developing world, several NGO founders suggest a more collaborative approach.

Solar power has taken root — not in the U.S. where it supplies but 1 percent of the power generated only from renewable sources — but in energy-deprived villages of the developing world.

Because costs for electricity in the U.S. are already low, unlike in rural India and Africa, the incentive to turn over to solar is lower for American households. But in poor areas around the world, some communities have skipped an entire generation of coal-powered electricity.

Despite the attractiveness of solar cells and solar concentrators lighting up and heating poor villages, solar brings its own problems. If not implemented right, a technology touted as clean and green can become an unnecessary burden for technologically unsophisticated communities. But the size of the need, and of the market, has led some groups — having learned from earlier initiatives — to push on in bringing solar to undeveloped areas.

Catch-22

It's very hard for health care facilities to break-even in their operations.  Making a profit is unheard of.  Everything seems to suffer from catch-22.  They have poorly staffed and supported facilities due to their poorer clientele.

Their clients just do not have disposable income to spend on health.  Poor families gamble with their health.  They wait until the last minute or until conditions are beyond worst before going to the doctor or nurse.  They believe it will get better tomorrow.  Unfortunately, they die before tomorrow comes.

Seeds, Roots and Herbs

One out of five Congolese children do not reach their fifth birthday.  That's a tragic.  Rural Congolese families are even more susceptible.  They have less access to traditional health care.

However, these same families have learned to survive on non-traditional medicines and cures.  They have an abundance of roots and herbs.

New roots and herbs are being found daily.  We, Congo Helping Hands, introduced the Moringa Tree for nutrition intervention.  Later, we found that the seeds could be used for simple water purification.  

What the Future Holds?

Children are the future.  It does not matter if their American, Haitian, Sudanese, or Congolese children.

In the case of Congo, children face many obstacles.  Lack of health care, education, safe water, and development are critical for their future.

As the world grows smaller, the divide between the haves and the have-nots widens.  Therefore, the scope of suffering will increase.  And our view of the suffering will increase, too. 

Everything will be amplified.  The needs of poor will be amplified.  But the ways and choices to make a difference will be amplified.  You will just need to act.

The Odds are Greater

Meet Christine.  She could be the young mother from next door.  Or she could be the one from down the street.  Or she could be the one from the other side of town.  Unfortunately, she is not.

She is a young mother living in rural Congo.  The opportunities for Christine and her children is limited.  There is limited access to health care.  There is greater chance that they will not survive a preventable or curable illness or disease.  Malaria, measles, dysentery and typhoid are deadly diseases.

More Copies, Please

I want to introduce to you, Hdris.  He is a unique person.

Hdris practices in the middle of no-where in a remote, off-the-map village.  He is not a doctor.  But he is the equivalent of Physician Assistant.  In other words, he is a super nurse.  He performs minor but life-saving surgeries, in addition to providing basic health care.  He is vital to the thousands of poor villagers in the area.  His clinic is located about four motor bike ride from the Bulape Hospital, a bush hospital.

Hdris formerly worked at the Bulape Hospital as a head nurse in the operating room.  Bulape Hospital is the reference hospital for about 30 clinics.  It is located about 170 miles north of civilization.  That is, a town with two banks, restaurants, clinics, stores, gas stations, cars, trucks, and occasional electricity, water, and TV.  Occasional means it is available periodically but not 24x7 or even daily.

Bush hospitals like Bulape struggle to attract and keep doctors.  Therefore, it is unbelievable that Hdris left Bulape Hospital and went further into the bush to service the poor.  Bulape needs about 29 more copies of Hdris. 

Solar Energy is Critical to Village Development

 
Solar energy is the key to development in rural Congo.  There are no power grids to provide electricity.  And gasoline and diesel used to generate electricity are too expensive for it to be sustainable.

Congo Helping Hands was established to improve the quality of life for rural poor Congolese.  We chose to work in the areas of education, health, and development.  Frankly, development activities were delayed due to its complexity.  Also, it was more convenient to assist and support an existing education system and health system.

But the time has come to jump into community development in the rural villages in central Congo.  Every time we look to or propose a project, the lack of electricity is limiting factor.  Electricity enables community development.  Also, it enables and extends health and education, too.

Our reference hospital uses some solar energy.  But primarily, it relies upon diesel-generated electricity out of necessity.  The installed solar electric systems are generally used for lighting only.  The solar energy is not stored or used to power equipment.

In the past year, we have looked at the successes of the Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF).  "For the past 20 years, the Solar Electric Light Fund has worked to deliver solar power to rural villages in Africa, Asia, and Latin America by facilitating a new generation of “whole village” solar electrification projects."  I concur with their belief, 'energy is a human right.'  SELF’s Solar Integrated Development Maturity Model is their 5-level framework for understanding how energy poverty can be tackled at the local level, sustainably, one village at a time.  The five levels include water, food, health, education, and enterprise.

Starting next year (2011), Congo Helping Hands plans to implement its Congo Water Project Download Congo Water Project - Flyer - June 2010.  The center piece of the project is the establishment of a rural water company.  Solar energy will be critical to power planned water wells for drinking, domestic and agricultural use.

In the future, solar energy projects will improve the hospital and clinics use of solar energy.  Finally, solar energy is being considered as part of the Vinyl School Project .  The project will construct semi-permanent classrooms made out of used vinyl billboards.

Betting Against Life

"Children are our most valuable natural resource." Herbert Hoover, 31st U.S. President

Most societies and cultures realize that children are valuable assets.  They are valuable now and in the present.  And they are valuable in the future.

But children are not respected as valuable persons.  The collective resources allocated for children and their issues are non-existent in Congo.  Schools and education are barely funded.  Health care is equally poorly funded.  BUT the neglect of health care issues results in death and suffering.

The lives of children are discounted.  Parents have more children because they anticipate some children is not going to make it.   

There Are No Scheduled Checkups

Polio was eradicated from the US many years ago.  Today, it is just one of the often forgotten vaccines and shots routinely given to children.  They are given during a baby's scheduled checkup.

In Congo and most developing countries, babies do not have checkup schedules.  Most babies are not even born in a health facility.    Many times, health facilities and trained personnel are not available.  So, it is not uncommon that poor parents do not routinely take their children to the doctors for checkups.

Sadly, that's why one out of five children in the Congo do not live long enough to see their fifth birthday.  Polio kills and cripples.