What We Do
Medical
Our four Clinics are rudimentary and remote. Primary Health Care programs underpin our work emphasising public health education, and treatment of the main infectious diseases that cause such high infant mortality, safe birthing practice, trauma care and acute malnutrition.
Health seeking behaviour is difficult to change. Some traditional medicine is effective, some deadly. Use of drugs is haphazard and village ‘chemists’ can wrongfully prescribe with devastating consequences.
We focus on three aims.
1. Treatment of acute disease, eg. malaria ,respiratory and diarrhoeal illnesses. This saves a life
2. Home visitation and relationship building to identify chronic disease and infectious disease vectors. This can help build healthy families and change health seeking behaviour
3. Good community antenatal programs, and public health initiatives, clean water, hygeine and vector control. This helps build a healthy community.
Training is by experiential on the job apprenticeship, e-learning and bespoke training in line with WHO guidelines. We have a New Foundations training manual with 120 films transferable to smartphone. We employ 25 workers, all local indigenous community members. Our Training course has the State Primary Care Department approval.
We also have a Community Vision Centre, the only one of its kind in the State providing screening , refraction, prescription eye ware, lens grinding and dispensing onsite. This project is run in conjunction with Mission for Vision (UK). We also screen for cataract and have operated on over 550 patients to date.
We also identify cleft lip patients and link with other international NGO’s for individual surgical cases, where to leave the patient would otherwise result in death. We also run surgical camps concentrating on hernia repair, a very real problem for many.
Spiritual
We run a small fellowship at the mission station where people come to ask questions about Christianity, discuss , and share a meal. We link with several pastors across communities. We provide biblical resources and literature, and fund a pastors conference each year for up to 30 local pastors. We also run prayer camps for our workers twice a year to encourage and disciple.
We have a Mission Chaplain who mentors our workers in times of difficulty and provide spiritual council.
Educational
New Foundations programs are grassroots and very much part of community life. We help support a local Primary School and have founded, staffed and equipped a primary school in a community where there is no regular education for its children.
We also strongly foster the artistic abilities of children with provision of materials, as many demonstrate a real eagerness for creativity.
We provide free electricity from our generator to a secondary school where retention of teachers has proved difficult. With evening power to their quarters this has stopped many from leaving.
We also provide borehole water to the school for both staff and pupils.
Social
We have two generators from which we run a subsidised provision for many houses in the community. This allows children to study in the evening, and better quality of life for many.
We have put boreholes in to each clinic with provision for the community. Clean drinking water is a fundamental priority.
Sexual predation of minors is a problem and we have established a day centre for feeding and support for children perceived at risk, with sensitive family support to increase parental awareness.
We have also set up a micro finance initiative, and collective farm project.