A startling fact opened up this week’s meeting – The average weekly income of families enrolled in GHI’s health center program is $3.77, with 37% of these families earning less than $2.00 per week. GHI works within these financial constraints, but hopes to ultimately shatter this cycle of poverty through community-driven self-agency.
Lindsay and Olivia held their first biweekly Skype meeting with GHI. For the duration of the academic year, our partner liasions will be Eve, the US Operations Coordinator, and Christiana, who is a Princeton in Africa Fellow stationed on-site. They reported the impressive progress made in their ongoing expansion four new health centers in the Musanze District. The official enrollment was greeted with unprecedented interest levels amongst the communities. Accordingly, each center will be training a full class of forty families. Here’s an excerpt from GHI’s blog explaining the decisions to scale up into the district:
We consider Musanze to be an ideal fit for GHI’s mission based on a number of factors, particularly its high level of demonstrated need and a local leadership committed to a productive partnership. With a chronic malnutrition rate of nearly 63% (compared to the national average of 44%), Musanze represents both a challenge and a tremendous opportunity for the type of change to which GHI has long been committed. District leadership and those in charge of our partnered health centers are well aware of the problems faced by their community—and have demonstrated a willingness and desire to support our efforts.
To get a glimpse at GHI’s health center program, we watched a video detailing a family’s trajectory towards agricultural self-sufficiency. Innocent, one of GHI’s field educators, was shown working with a family to implement a home garden and to address their individualized needs. Please feel free to enjoy the short film here:
Our GlobalHealthU discussion for this week looked at the recent controversies surrounding the Affordable Care Act, especially as it pertains to the government’s role in securing either health equity or healthy citizens. Aside from political and legislative interventions, it was suggested that collaborations with the private industry are indispensable for a strong public health infrastructure. For instance, the high accessibility to fats, sugars and salts is engendering an unprecedented rise in diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Without effectively checking the market-driven interests of food manufacturers, these alarming trends will continue in spite of policymaking initiatives. Community-centered health care must be coupled with work at the state and national level. The decentralized nature of Rwanda’s health care system is being recognized as a model program for developing and developed countries alike. As part of their Mutuelles de santé, the country provides universal health insurance and enlists 45,000 community health workers throughout the country to provide psychosocial support and primary care services. The outcomes speak for themselves – Maternal mortality has decreased by 60%, life expectancy has doubled, and the prevalence of once widespread diseases (such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria) is exponentially declining. Perhaps the United States can take a lesson from resource-constrained countries like Rwanda, who are able to prioritize both equity and affordability.