Heart to Heart
The ICHA Blog
Lyza Hiltner grew up in Seattle and has lived in the Bay Area since 2001. She has a B.A. in Peace and Conflict Studies from UC Berkeley and has worked as a conflict mediator and community mentor for a San Francisco refugee organization. After spending five months exploring South America in 2007, she returned to San Francisco with a fresh perspective and decided to begin a career in healthcare. She will start a nursing program next summer.
Lyza joined ICHA in August 2008 and will be going to Ghana as part of the community outreach team. As a Seattle native, she loves camping, really good coffee and running in the rain!
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The Ghanaian Diet |
I would like to attempt a discussion about the diet here, as it is a central focus of our messages. However, though I’ve talked to many Ghanaians and I have tried most of these dishes, I know I may still get the exact ingredients and preparation wrong. So, I invite any Ghanaian (or anyone) who reads this to please comment and correct me!
Fish is obviously a great source of protein and full of nutrients that protect your heart. And they’ve got lots of it here, as Elmina is a coastal city and a major fishing hub! However, the most common way you will see fish in the market is salted and smoked, for preservation. The smoked fish is fine, but it’s the salted fish that is a concern for risk of heart disease. It is often cooked into a stew and salt is also added, making the entire dish very high in salt. We are suggesting to cook the salted fish first in water, to get some of the salt out before using it in a meal, or if cooked into a stew, don’t also add salt.
Fruits and vegetables abound here. I see bananas, mango, pineapple, oranges and watermelon everywhere – and I eat them as often as I can! Vegetables of all sorts are also in ample supply. But, like most places, it’s more expensive depending on the season and probably doesn’t go as far, when trying to feed a lot of people. We suggest to eat as much fruits and vegetables as often as possible – whichever ones are a favorite, or the most common and most affordable. They’re all good for you!
From speaking to people and paying attention to the signs on the street, the most popular dishes are:
Fufu and some sort of soup or stew (light soup, ground nut soup, fish stew)
Fufu is ground cassava and plantains. It requires a strenuous process to prepare – using a large stone bowl over a fire and essentially kneading (pounding with full force) the ingredients with a long, heavy wooden gavel, standing over the bowl. The soups vary – light soup is made with water, tomatoes and vegetables. Ground nut soup (ground nut is peanut) – the nuts are cooked over a fire in a stone bowl mixed with sand to heat them. When cooked, the nut is oily and pasty – a lot like peanut sauce in thai dishes. Fish stew can be prepared many ways. However, a common way to preserve fish here is by salting it. Once it’s ready to be cooked, it is added to broth (oil, water, tomatoes, etc.) and the salt flavors the soup. Smoked fish is also common here, which will also be used in soups giving a different flavor. All of the soups are often made with palm oil, which is most commonly a sweet red oil; though the palm nut can produce three different kinds of oils (black, white and red).
Continue reading "The Ghanaian Diet" » |
Spreading the Message |
The youthful student body of Edinaman Senior Secondary School slowly filed into the large, 2 story assembly hall – all 1,000 as promised! This was the culminating event of our schools programs, and probably the one that had given me the most anxiety.
Taking a moment to reflect on the past week, I feel pleased with what we have accomplished. We started the week on Monday with the Teacher workshop, which could not have gone better (perhaps we could have started on time, but I can’t forget where we are). And we ended the week at Edinaman.
Though 1,000 high school students is not a crowd that either Vince or I have experience with, it went surprisingly well. I say “surprisingly” because I was, in fact, fearing the worst – laughter after every word we spoke in our funny American accents, or worse, blank stares! Thankfully, neither of these scenarios greeted us. Instead, the students seemed quite engaged, certainly shy when it came to volunteering for activities, but still interested and thoughtful. Because Edinaman is the only one of the three schools that has an assembly hall big enough for all of their students, it was the only assembly with the entire student body present.
I think in our favor (giving us a day to practice), we hosted a smaller assembly (for about 200 eager students) at Eguafo the day before. The assemblies included a brief interactive lecture, addressing the basics of heart disease and prevention – focusing on diet and exercise; with lots of activities throughout. The activities were the key. They included a rowdy fitness competition between students and teachers! The crowd loved this. Though young and mostly quite healthy, the students are important ambassadors to the community. The message they bring home to their families is taken as truth. Teachers are highly respected, so what they say is often heeded. So far, what we have seen is that the students are eager to learn and repeat the information, charged with good questions for us and their teachers.
We could not have pulled off these events so seamlessly without the help of the teachers and administrators. They have been committed to ICHA since we got here almost a month ago and we certainly appreciate their attention. We are counting on these leaders to remain involved once we leave Elmina. We believe the interest is there. We have planted the seed and provided the resources. Hopefully the message will take root.
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Meeting Expectations |
One of the things that I remember well from the last time I was in Elmina is the satisfaction after a good meeting. Sure, meetings are certainly full of cultural confusion which often means moments of awkwardness. But, overall, we all tend to agree with what needs to be taken care of and how. I usually learn quite a bit from these encounters and gain a new perspective, a new way to present our message; And certainly an extra spring to my step (which is especially obliging in this heat)!
Heart health, the reason we are here, is an easy message to share. It affects everyone – from children to seniors everywhere in the world! And everyone can do something to prevent it. It’s not a controversial health issue, and it’s so important. Thus, general reception of the issue is usually positive and supportive.
Today, Vince and I met with the Director of the District of Education for the KEEA Municipal. Though this was more of a formality than anything else, as we have been working with the PR officer since September 09, it was another satisfying meeting. He began by telling us that what he thinks we are doing is very good and explained why he thinks heart health is so important. To summarize, he expressed that “our heart runs our body - if our heart is not healthy, our body is not healthy. This is a problem that affects every human so it is a problem that is important to talk about. It is good to teach youth, the innocent, so they learn early”.
If I could record every meeting, we would have our package for the community. Most people we talk to understand the importance of cardiovascular health, can earnestly express the bigger picture and are eager to learn how to put it into practice. This puts us in a great position to move forward with the projects we have been working on and share ways to practice heart health.
ICHA will be hosting an all-day teacher workshop next week that, in collaboration with the District of Education, we have invited all Science, P.E., and Home-Ec teachers from the three public high schools. Along with guest lecturers from the clinic and the community, we will be presenting a heart health program to incorporate into the science curriculum. The week following the workshop, Vince and I will be leading interactive assemblies at the three high schools to engage students in the discussion of taking care of their hearts and their bodies. We will invite the students to initiate a Heart Health Club at their school, with hopes they will continue to participate in this discussion, at school and in their community, long after ICHA has left Elmina.
All the pieces are falling into place. Everyone we have worked with here in Elmina has been so accommodating and I think are as eager as we are for this project to lift off. We have great expectations!
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The Church Council |
The church and Christianity is paramount in Elmina and Ghana. In fact, even the names of all the shops are after a religious phrase like, “Blessed Be Beauty Supply”, “Jesus Loves Cameras”, “King of Kings Chop Shop”, and my favorite, “It Is Not My Strength Auto Repair”. Everyone we have spent time with goes to church at least once a week and services are held almost every evening. One of the most common questions we get is, “Do you go to church?” In the public schools, the most popular and active clubs are the religious ones. Obviously church is an extremely important part of the lives of the people here, so it makes sense for us to include the church communities in our projects.
Tim and I (community outreach team) met with a local pastor who was interested in what ICHA is doing. He invited us to the Church Council meeting, which happens to meet on the first Monday of every month. The Council is made up of about 50 churches in Elmina. The meeting was held at the Methodist Church, one of the biggest, whose adult congregation is about 600.
We had prepared a brief introduction and explanation of ICHA and our outreach in Elmina, expressing our desire to work with the community. We gave a survey of potential activities they may be interested in for their church communities the next time ICHA is here, including a walking group, cooking classes, a fitness competition, and lecture event. We also left them with a basic CVD fact sheet for take-home. The reception was great. There were about 30 pastors or church leaders present, both men and women. They seemed genuinely pleased to have us there. From the feedback we got, ICHA is the first NGO that they have worked with. I feel excited and privileged to have taken part in their fellowship. It will be exciting to develop a program that involves such a large and active population of Elmina. I look forward to partnering with them in the future.
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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!
Continue reading "We go with open minds" »
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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