THe RACE

It happened! The first race. We held a 5K run in MansaKonko at the Community Nursing School. Nurses from all over the country came to participate and to win medical equipment for their communities. The first 5 runners received Stethoscopes, Blood Pressure Cuffs, Watches, TShirts, Thermometers and lanyards. Every participant received a stethoscope and Tshirt. The race went well with some Peace Corps and VSO participants who even showed up just to run for fun. Our plan is to schedule a race for each Region for November of this year. This run was a small experiment to iron out the details but we are very confident that with the help of the nurses and some cheerful volunteers the nationwide race will also be a success in November.

Fundraiser June 14th

Last Saturday we held an auction/raffle to help raise funds for our 5k race for stethoscopes and blood pressure cuffs. The auction went very well with the help of over 30 local restaurants that donated dinners, and many local businesses that donated items for our raffle. We would like to specially thank Malik Chemist on Kairaba, and Comium for being our biggest supporters. The raffle and auction helped us to raise almost $1,000. The money is going to be used for our 5k walk/run on June 22nd. We are hoping to give every participant a stethoscope and most of the runners will receive a blood pressure cuff. The idea of the race is to get the community health nurses that are working out in remote villages to come together and walk/run for medical supplies. Most of these nurses do not even have the basic medical supplies they need to perform their job correctly. Any nurse who participates will receive this equipment for their own use. We are hoping the fundraising can continue and that these runs can be nation wide and annual. More to come please visit this link to see the commercial that will air on the local television channel here to promote the race. Thank you for your interest and support! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mptJm1zH-zo

Who We Are......

We created this site to help people at home, and around the world, to better understand what we are trying to do. If you found this link from Kellie or Sarah’s email then you probably have heard something before about our work as Peace Corps Volunteers, but in case you haven’t here it goes…..We are both registered nurses from the US currently serving in The Gambia, West Africa. We both work with nursing schools helping to train community health and enrolled nurses. Both of our schools have very minimal resources and close to no funding for things like books and school supplies. We depend on donations for most of our supplies, but even with this it is hard to manage. Our school’s top priority is books, most of our stock is from the 1970s and the students can’t afford their own. At the moment both schools depend on lecture notes alone as their means of reference. The few textbooks that we do have are shared between the staff and borrowed to students. Each of our schools has close to 100 students who depend on the government to pay their tuition cost. We are trying our best to tap all local resources to help gather what funds we can and through this process we came up with the idea for the project we are currently asking you to help with. A local bookstore here has offered to help us get discounted books, and also to assist with some of the shipping costs. Our project is to gather support from people through a Peace Corps Partnership (http://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors&&) and then make a mass order of textbooks that can be delivered directly to The Gambia. In the first phase of this project we are trying to get 50 copies of the core books that we see to be a necessity for a nursing student. These books will belong to the school and will be lent out to students for individual studies while they are enrolled. In the next posting we will display the books we have chosen and the books YOU can purchase by donating to our partnership. Also if you have any questions it is easiest to email us at nursesinafrica@gmail.com. Thanks! If you do visit the Peace Corps Website and look at other partnerships please know that ours will be posted soon, it is currently getting approval in Washington. Thanks Again!!

Meet the students

Here is a look at some of the students during first aid training.

The Books..

The plan is now to work with a local book store who has offered to order the books for us and help reduce the price of shipping. What we are doing is writing a partnership with Peace Corps so that if anyone wants to donate money it will go towards the fund we will use to purchase these books in country! The partnership has to be approved by Washington and we are still waiting for it to be ready. In the meantime, we have opened a bank account specifically for the projects so donors can directly donate in that way NOW if they wish to. Our goal is to get a set of each of these books for each student at both schools. That would be 200 SETS of books. The books will stay at the school and be loaned out to students while they are enrolled. For more information about any of the books please click on the links below. THANKS!

1. Peadiatric Book: http://www.alibris.com/search/books/qwork/8681644/used/Wong's%20Nursing%20Care%20of%20Infants%20and%20Children

2. Gynecology Illustrated: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/bookdescription.cws_home/698237/description#description

3. Obstetrics Illustrated: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/bookdescription.cws_home/697543/description#description

4. Drug Guide: http://www.pohly.com/books/mosbysnursing.html

5. Medical Surgical: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/bookdescription.cws_home/707330/description#description

6. Nurses Dictionary: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/bookdescription.cws_home/704968/description#description

Run for a Stethoscope

A big problem for the nurses in the field here is their lack of equipment. The community health nurses work in remote villages and provide primary health care to hundreds of people. Their job includes treating and prescribing medicine to villagers who cannot access a hospital, and working at the reproductive clinics where all pregnant mothers and children under five receive their immunizations and check ups. The unfortunate situation is that the majority of these nurses are without even the basic equipment necessary to perform their jobs such as stethoscopes and blood pressure cuffs. Our plan is to host a 5K run where nurses will register, pay a small fee and participate with the incentive that upon finishing the race they will receive a stethoscope and possibly a blood pressure machine. We are currently trying to raise funds from local businesses and organizations. How can you help? If you have equipment you would like to donate that would be welcomed! We have several sources willing to ship the equipment from the USA here but free shipping is welcomed. If you would prefer to donate money that will go towards purchasing the equipment let us know we can be emailed at nursesinafrica@gmail.com

Discounted Books

In an effort to make books more affordable for nurses in the field and student nurses we have made arrangements with a local bookshop. With a big order we will get 10% off of already discounted nursing textbooks. The 3 most valuable resources identified include a medical surgical nursing book, a midwifery book, and a pocket nursing dictionary. If 20 or more people order at once the cost will be 2000dalasi ($100) for the first 10, and 2125dalasi ($106) for everyone else. Please encourage your nurses to do this we would like to make an order as soon as possible! The Medical Surgical book and dictionary are pictured above and this is the Midwifery book that is available.