Roots of Health - the Adventure has Begun!

Now that Marcus and I are finally here in Palawan, the work of Roots of Health / Ugat ng Kalusugan has started in earnest.

In the next few months, Ugat ng Kalusugan will begin conducting reproductive health trainings with students and future partners at Palawan State University and will be completing more comprehensive needs assessments of various communities in Puerto Princesa in which we may conduct our activities. My mom, Susan, has conducted a needs assessment of Barangay Bagong Silang, and we may well do our work in this community as they very clearly need the support, but there may be other communities in which our activities would be more beneficial, so we will take the time to gather data on other communities before deciding exactly which community to work in.

We will gather data from the government City Health agency, through Palawan State University College of Nursing and Health Sciences (they do needs assessments for their students’ practicum programs) and by going into the various communities and speaking with the community leaders, health workers (if any) and local residents.

As we go through this process, we will also conduct reproductive health trainings with students within PSU’s school of nursing and midwifery and school of social work. While PSU students are elites in the sense that they have education, many of them come from the communities we are considering working in, and many of them lack the same knowledge regarding reproductive health (yes, even the nurses!)

We hope to complete our needs assessments by November, and begin working in the community we select in the same month. We will begin with our reproductive health outreach and our healthy pregnancy program, and will plan to introduce the nutrition program in late December or early January 2010.