One year ago, three ARC team members – Beth from Minneapolis, Sonia from Uganda and Ajjima in Thailand – put their heads together and submitted an idea about hospice care for refugees to ARC’s Changemakers Award idea competition. Part of their idea was to train community volunteers in camps to provide home-based care for their neighbors. On Day 142, we’re making it happen.
In Nakivale, there are many people who are nearing the end of their lives or are ill and can’t make it into the clinic. They’re at home and many don’t have family who are able to care for them appropriately. So, the idea was to train a group of people who could help.
And we had the perfect group – ARC’s Community Activists, volunteers who help share messages with their communities about health and preventing violence. ARC team members Dorica and Hope assembled the group for a training on the basics of home-care, including: bedside manner, how to help a patient be as comfortable as possible, and handwashing and other methods for preventing further infection within the household.
“Communications is very important as you handle the patient,” Hope told the trainees. “If the patient has a wound and it has become septic, it will be very stinky. Don’t makes faces. That might make the patient feel they are unworthy – they will feel bad.” It’s a good reminder for people who may never have been in the situation of providing comfort and care for someone who is ill.
The trainees had so many questions, the training went 1.5 hours longer than planned. They feverishly took notes as Hope and Dorica discussed different scenarios and challenges.
“The training has made me so happy,” said Maria, one of the Community Activists. “Now, I can help people take their medications and help them be comfortable.”
Knowing is half the battle – tomorrow we provide the community activists with some of the supplies they need for giving home-care.
This change made possible by Cresa.
