VCU GH2DP Honduras Group's Work Featured by VCU's Division of Community Engagement

Earlier this month our group traveled to the Yoro area of northern Honduras to meet with our community partners and ministry of health officials and to lay the groundwork for our June 2014 trip. The VCU Division of Community Engagement is now featuring our work on their site (this can be found here).

Also, the VCU undergraduate chapter of Engineers Without Borders was awarded a Quest Innovation Fund grant to support their development of novel rain catchment technology for use in Yoro. Congratulations to all of the students involved in this project!!!

VCU GH2DP Honduras Trip: Final Post

17 villages we serve in Yoro; the villages appearing in color
are those that may benefit from the new water chlorination
system (see text) 

This will be my final post prior to coming home tomorrow; this has been a whirlwind trip filled with productive meetings and some great new potential projects.

One of the projects we are most excited about is a new water chlorination project; piggybacking on older technology that is currently in place, new chlorination systems may, once installed, provide clean drinking water to 6 of the 17 villages we are currently supplying with water filters. We hope the chlorinated water will provide more consistent access to clean water in a more sustainable, community-driven way.

The map above unfortunately is not high resolution but provides a sense of the potential impact of the chlorination systems. The villages that appear in color are those that would be supplied clean drinking water via the new systems; the villages in gray are those in which clean drinking water will continue to be supplied by our current water filter project.

VCU GH2DP Honduras Trip: A Day in the Mountains

Hiking to Chorro Viento

Yesterday we got up early and left Olanchito to drive out to the rural, mountainous area where the people we serve live. This is a large area that consists of 17 villages and roughly 2,000 people. Because of logistical issues we have only visited 2 of these villages in the past (La Hicaca and Lomitas) and have coordinated with our community partners to have people from the outlying villages come see us in these places. Practically speaking, this means that some people have to walk 6 hours (each way) over mountains in the hot sun (it's typically in June and we are near the equator = hot, hot, hot) just to see us in clinic.

We were excited yesterday to have the opportunity to visits a few additional villages we have never

En route to Chorro Viento

been to: La Culatta and Chorro Viento. Our primary goal was to assess older water catchment infrastructure and to see if a new chlorination project is feasible and acceptable to people living in areas that would be served by the new technology.

We could drive to La Culatta but had to hike out to Chorro Viento; this was a 30 minute "walk," at least for people living in the area. For us it was more like 60 minutes and was as strenuous as any serious hike I have ever been on in the United States. Keep in mind this was the easiest village to reach and it's January-far cooler than June. I have always respected the mental and physical toughness of people living in the area but this has given me profound new respect. It is not uncommon to see a woman in her 70s walk 3-6 hours to come see us wearing what amounts to plastic shower sandals; I am confidant I could not keep pace with these women.

When we reached Chorro Viento we also got to see a project that was created in partnership with a group from the European Union: a working turbine that supplied power to this village. This is the only village in the region with power and was made possible by their proximity to a local river/ waterfall. The project was incredible and people in the village had enormous pride in the

Cistern in La Culatta; there are 4 of these
in the region supplying water to 5 of the
17 villages we serve; the water is not
safe to drink but a new chlorination
project may be able to provide clean water 

technology. What was truly amazing is the power poles-every bit as large as those found in the US-were carried up the mountain by people from the village. No heavy equipment could reach the village so the poles were planted by hand. The work must have been unbelievably strenuous.

People do so much with so little in the area, and a little really
does go a long way. I left yesterday with a renewed sense of admiration for the people living in the area and with a strong desire to do more to help people in the region. We are hopeful we can continue the many productive partnerships we have established in the region to help improve the health of its people. It is a great privilege to be able to come here, to be welcomed into the communities, and to be given the opportunity to help.

The region has traditionally had a problem with poor indoor
air quality related to poor stove ventilation in homes. Many homes have
now had improved ventilation systems installed and are
effectively ventilating smoke from homes

We also brought enough anti-worm medication
to provide another dose to everyone living
in the region (this is part of a long-term longitudinal
regional project to decrease the intestinal
worm burden) 

VCU GH2DP Honduras Trip: A Day of Meetings in Olanchito

Meeting with the local Minister of health and his staff

Our first full day in Olanchito was a whirlwind but very productive.

We met with the local Minister of health and his staff and discussed our work to date and future collaboration.

Meeting with our local community partners

We then met with our local community partners and thereafter with staff from the Pico Bonita Foundation. We discussed collaboration on new water chlorination systems that can provide clean drinking water to 5 of the 17 villages we serve; we are very excited about this potential project.

Meeting with the Pico Bonita Foundation

Today we are traveling to the mountains and will be hiking out to several villages (Chorro Viento and La Culata) to meet with people and investigate old water procurement infrastructure. Will then meet with our community partners in La Hicaca.

More to come!

VCU's Global Health & Health Disparities Program Sets Off for Honduras (Again!)

Traveling to La Hicaca 

Our group leaves this Sunday to meet with our community partners and the local Ministry of Health in Yoro, Honduras. We have traditionally used our January trip to meet with our key partners, review information from the prior brigade and to help lay the groundwork for the subsequent large-scale, clinical brigade in June.

Since 2008 we have been serving a series of 17 villages with approximately 2,000 people in rural, mountainous northern Honduras. People in the region have little to no access to healthcare and suffer from fundamental environmental health pressures (such as lack of access to clean water and latrines). 

We have a large-scale water filter program in the region that has been active since 2008. To date we have distributed over 350 water filters, each of which can provide clean drinking water to an entire family for 2 years (or more). We estimate approximately 75% of the people in the region have access to clean drinking water as a direct result

Preparing water filters for distribution 

of this program. Anecdotally, less children are developing (and occasionally dying from) diarrheal illness. More objectively, the incidence of severe diarrheal illness reported to the Ministry of Health has halved since the inception of the program. 

One of our projects this past June, a Chagas disease knowledge and attitudes survey, was performed at the request of the local health ministry. Chagas disease is a parasitic disease that is common in Latin America and is associated with severe cardiac and gastrointestinal morbidity. We will be sharing the results of the project with our partners this upcoming week; we are excited to discuss study implications and next steps.

Working on the indoor air quality project

Two years ago the health ministry and local leaders asked us to investigate the problem of indoor air pollution. A now-third year VCU medical student, Audrey Le, formally assessed the issue and found certain home characteristics were associated with respiratory symptoms. Subsequently we discovered many stoves were in a state of disrepair and not effectively ventilating smoke. This upcoming week we will be meeting with a local non-profit organization who may be able to help repair these defective stoves; we are excited about this potential collaboration.

Additionally, we are excited to discuss several upcoming surveys we hope to administer in June: looking at knowledge, attitudes and risk factors for intestinal helminth (worm) infection and a survey on women's health issues. We also are partnering with a VCU undergraduate group, Engineers Without Borders, to explore a novel rain catchment technology (to help provide clean drinking water) and will be conducting a survey focused on barriers for optimal use of water filters. 

Clinic in Lomitas

During next week's trip we will also be supplying anti-helminthics to help bolster regional efforts for intestinal worm control. We will also be doing the groundwork for our upcoming clinical mission; figuring out key logistics such as clinic space, how to recruit patients, et cetera. 

I will post about our trip either during the trip or shortly thereafter; stay tuned. Dr. Gonzalo Bearman will also be posting about the experience, be sure to check out his blog. You can also follow our progress on twitter here.