Belize is hot hot hot! 10am feels like 12pm and the breeze is not as cool as I would want.
We arrived at UB and jumped right into work at 8:30am and were met with the cool breeze of air conditioning. The smells of coffee and green tea were familiar smells and I was eager to meet the UB and San Martin individuals and “cultural brokers” who would help in the process. The individuals at the meeting included the Dean of Nursing, Social work and public health; The chair of nursing and Alicia Medina our “cultural broker”/ community health worker in San Martin. To start of the meeting we discussed what we were looking to get more information about. Out topics of interest included Demographic information of San martin, chronic diseases, family violence, hurricane preparedness and reproductive health. Within each section we discussed specific areas we wanted to delve into such as the physical, mental and cultural impact of family violence. We also discussed different ways we would ask questions and I was able to present the surveys I had discovered while I was here in Florida prior to starting my International Field Experience (IFE).
An issue that we came upon was advertising to the community to inform them of what we were doing in San Martin and it was mentioned that we could possibly hold a health fair and collaborate with other health organizations in Belmopan to educate the community of San Martin. Possible organization we could partner with included the Red Cross, NEMO, Cancer society, Council of aging, diabetes and Kidney, the local dialysis center and Dandriga Cancer society. This event is supposed to occur in the next two to three weeks and hopefully it will be able to occur especially since many organizations may need notification months in advance. It would be awesome if we can pull this off with the help of UB, but if we aren’t able to I hope we are still able to give something back to Belize at the end of the trip.
In the afternoon we had a presentation by the National Emergency Management Organization (NEMO) presented by Roberto Ramerez. In it we learned the organizational structure and the daily functioning’s of NEMO during emergencies. A challenge that NEMO faces is infrastructural development especially since many areas lack the resources for people to be safe during hurricanes or other disasters.
After an hour lunch we then received a lecture on Belizean culture from Mr. Sampson a professor of History and Anthropology here at UB. The history of Belize is rich and varied and involves the Mestizos, Creoles, Spanish and Maya, British and also U.S Confederates. We also learned about the San Martin community and their possible origins. History of Belize
Stay tuned and enjoy this fun Belizean proverb that sums of preliminary research:
No comments:
Post a Comment