Heart to Heart
The ICHA Blog
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The challenges that lie ahead |
With less than two weeks remaining before we depart to Elmina, our team has been busy working on preparations for our upcoming outreach. In less than one week, we will throw a fundraiser gala to raise money and to introduce ICHA to the bay area community through song, dance, and food. A week later, we will leave for Ghana. As things slowly come together, I find myself contemplating the challenges that lie ahead.
Though I’ve had some experience working in other cultures, I still find living and working in a foreign culture a difficult and complicated journey. The process of entering a distant culture, apart from it and yet a part of it, is both jarring and moving. When we are in Ghana, we must learn to reconcile the many inconsistencies inherent in what we’re doing. We have a strong belief in the power of community, the ability of a group of people to identify issues in their own community and bring about their own change. Yet, we are a foreign organization going in with specific notions about what needs to change. We go to Ghana to teach, but we also go to Ghana to learn. And we must somehow learn to navigate these two roles.
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Growing up in a small town in Wisconsin |
Believe it or not, growing up in a small town in Wisconsin has certain and often overlooked advantages, aside from an endless and cheap supply of cheese, football, and brats. Familiarity and comfort are obvious pluses, but the best thing about growing up in a small town is that once you step outside, you really come to appreciate the immensity of the world that surrounds you. The travel bug got me early and has taken me to places I never dreamed of seeing. While awe-inspiring sights will forever color my memory, the people I've met along the way are what make me wonder the most and make me want to know more. We have so much to learn from each other. Each trip, every experience, and every encounter with another way of life adds to my growing sense of the world and keeps my curiosity bubbling.
I would say that this curiosity, about the way people live and how humans struggle everywhere, has fueled a passion to make life a little easier for the next. Live simply so others may simply live, right? When public health flew over my radar, the lights went on and I was lucky enough to come across an organization like ICHA. I jumped on board a few months after it's inception in 2008, and since have had the wonderful privilege of working with some truly talented people on projects including community health awareness research, local and global networking, and currently, I'm part of a motivated team writing cardiovascular health and culture surveys for our pilot project in Elmina, Ghana.
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Beyond the lab bench |
Originally from New Brunswick, Canada, my graduate science education and training across Canada eventually led me to San Francisco, where I work as a postdoctoral researcher in the Diabetes Center at the University of California. I come to know about with ICHA through a friend who is also volunteering. The spirit and values of this budding outreach program is a big draw for me. It’s an opportunity to blend my long-term interest, research, and fundraising activities in the biology of communicable diseases, and my growing interest in health and science education.
I am excited about learning about, and learning from, Ghanians. They are known for their friendliness, rich culture and history. I am particularly keen on this opportunity to work with health-care and community workers in Elmina, a coastal fishing community. As a bench scientist I believe I have much to learn from, and contribute to, outreach projects. Beyond the value of training paths focused on developing clinician-scientists (MDs who also are also active researchers), I believe there is a vast reserve of untapped potential in basic health-science researchers (of the Ph.D. variety), of which I am one. We can contribute to, and benefit from, involvement in outreach projects because of our background in forming research questions, collecting and analyzing data, and health education, particularly in underserved communities worldwide, including Africa. I have little doubt that witnessing and managing the practicalities and challenges for health education, and application of treatments for cardiovascular diseases and diabetes, can go a long way towards influencing our perspectives and future approaches in research.
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Empowerment |
We’re in Tijuana, Mexico. The sun reflects off the aluminum panels that make up the small makeshift homes, making the day appear hotter than it really is. As the sweat drips down my brow, I take a break from mixing the cement that will then become a classroom in this economically disadvantaged town. I look up, and in horror, I see a small kid drinking water from the same trashcan that we have been washing our shovels in after mixing the cement. I gasp and wonder, why would a child drink water from such a filthy and contaminated bucket? Either his thirst got the best of him, or he is simply used to drinking dirty water, or unaware of the danger that it could bring. Sadly, this is the case in many countries, the lack of health education and sanitary conditions, has led people to take unintended risks with their own lives. Many people, all over the world, tragically become ill from conditions that are preventable, or at least able to be modified with proper public health.
Take for instance chronic diseases like diabetes and hypertension. These medical conditions kill millions of people world wide each year. Although there are plenty of medicines to counteract some of the disabling side effect of these diseases, there are also many lifestyle changes the patient can do to ameliorate the risks. With proper nutritional education and exercise awareness, the patient can become empowered to take control of the disease. Their history does not have to be predetermined for them; they can prevent a heart attack or dialysis, if they are first given the educational tools necessary to then change their lives.
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Making a difference |
I am honored to be a part of the first outreach to Ghana. As an avid traveler, I have been fortunate enough to see many underdeveloped nations. My favorite trips have been to areas where I have been able to join the community and culture and return home with a very personal experience.
Many of these countries have everyday survival and health related needs. On a recent trip to Cambodia, I learned that the average life expectancy is only around 50 years of age! I became aware that lack of knowledge contributed to their limited dietary understanding and lack of exercise, which greatly impact cardiovascular health.
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Sister Abena |
On my first visit to Ghana in 2003, I learned how the Fante people get their traditional names. It all depends on which day you were born -- not the date, just the day of the week. Having found this out, I took it upon myself to figure out that I was born on a Tuesday, and that women born on Tuesdays are usually named Abena. I figured a local name would serve me better in this foreign land, since my own name, Devon, is difficult even for some Americans to remember, spell and pronounce. So Abena it was, for the duration of my two month stay in Komenda, a small fishing village very near Elmina.
One of my fondest memories of that trip (and there are many) is of walking through the village and stopping to chat with people. As is common almost everywhere when making small talk, one of the first questions that typically came up was, "Wo frow'den?" or, "What is your name?" The first time this happened, I was happy to respond with something that I thought might put a smile on the villagers' faces -- "Fre me Abena," I said. "I am called Abena." (Note: I am attempting to spell the Fante words phonetically, and am undoubtedly butchering the real translations. Please forgive me for this.) Little did I know that the reaction I'd get would be far more than just a simple smile.
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We go with open minds |
My background is in conflict resolution so it is natural for me to be a good listener and want to hear all sides of every story. Before I started volunteering with ICHA, however, health was a new medium to me. Just before I discovered ICHA, I spent half a year traveling in South America. Upon my return home, I made the decision to begin a career in health care, as I discovered health affects everyone. Though I have been active with other development organizations in the past, this is the first time I will be part of a team promoting health education, with our first project being in Ghana. I am excited about this role, as health is a universal concern, that has no business being kept secret.
As our departure date nears, the wider the doors open for our outreach to Ghana. Every other day, I meet someone who knows someone who either grew up in Ghana, traveled to Ghana, or is part of the international CV community who relates to ICHA's mission. It's amazing how connected people are once you start talking to one another. It's very encouraging and it is allowing me to steamroll from one task to the next!
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It’s finally here |
Wow. It’s finally here.
January 2008 certainly seems like a long time ago. Back when the recession was merely an apocalyptic prediction and Obama appeared to be in a losing struggle for the democratic primary. Things change quickly.
January 2008 was also the month Sujatha and I launched ICHA. She had a brilliant idea, I had a passion for nonprofit management, just add water and a 501(c)(3) application and there you go. Ok. Not exactly. We certainly knew that kicking off a nonprofit from scratch would be toil incarnate and unimaginable and that we would have to search high and low to create a team with the expertise to pull it all off. We also knew that we were in for an uphill battle, since cardiovascular disease in the developing world is such a shockingly under-appreciated crisis. (The fact that CVD costs developing nations billions of dollars annually seems truly to be one of the best kept public health secrets around.)
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Returning to Elmina |
In little more than one month, the first ICHA outreach team will embark to Elmina, Ghana. For me, it will be a journey back to a place that affected me deeply, a town that provided the seed that eventually gave rise to this new organization aimed at educating communities to prevent the enormous suffering caused by untreated cardiovascular illness. It was the interactions with patients and individuals in this dynamic fishing village that helped me understand the pain that untreated cardiovascular disease causes people in underserved regions.
When I lived in Elmina in 2006, I learned to recognize the ubiquitous Akan symbols scattered throughout the town. These rich images somehow managed to use simple representations to illustrate deeply profound ideas. Gyename was perhaps the most common, crescent moons surrounding a gentle squiggle that symbolized faith and the omnipotence of God. But the symbol that perhaps resonated most deeply with me was sankofa. Sankofa, commonly represented as a bird looking backwards, translates literally to ‘go back and get it’, and illustrates positive progress through the benevolent use of knowledge, how the depth of experience from our collective pasts can and should be used to create a better future.
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About ICHA
The International Cardiovascular Health Alliance (ICHA) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to promoting cardiovascular health in the developing world. ICHA works closely with local clinics and community organizations to provide knowledge and tools to prevent cardiovascular disease.
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