Some of you may remember that last year we met Liz and Sergio who are currently working for the BMS in Mozambique. By making and selling cakes at one of our parade services we were able to present them with a cheque to buy first aid kits with.
We were really pleased to receive a message recently from Liz and Sergio, which reads as follows (has been edited slightly - PEPE stands for Pre-school Education Programme - Rachel is Liz's sister; she is a qualified nurse):
"I am writing to let you know how the training went. Sorry you didn’t get this sooner, but time ran away with us. I don’t know if you saw the blog we wrote about the training. It’s at lsvilela.wordpress.com. We had 38 people attend. More people wanted to go but we limited it this time to 2 people per PEPE. There were more PEPEs present than we had first thought. So there were 19 PEPEs rather than 15. We had 15 kits prepared but gave out 14 as the other people arrived late or there weren’t 2 people. We decided to do it that way so they value the training and the equipment. Hopefully we can do another day of training at the end of the year for those who missed out or arrived late and it will give us time to prepare more kits. The money you sent us meant that we could buy 15 kits and extra things like more plastic gloves, antiseptic cream, etc. We managed to get them cheaper in SA, though we couldn’t get 15 of the same ones so had to juggle the items around so they all contained the same things. Everyone seemed to enjoy the training and there were lots of questions. Rachel did a great job, along with Sergio who translated and managed to relate the information to their culture. There were some strange questions/comments that you will find on the blog. Rachel taught them lots of basics and they really enjoyed looking into the first aid kits to see what was in them and learn how they may be used. You really sensed the lack of knowledge and lots of traditions that they grow up with that aren’t very ‘medical’. In the next month or two I will visit the PEPEs to check the kits are there and are being used. I know a doctor here that I could perhaps ask to do some training. We let the people know that the money for the kits were given through young people giving time and baking cakes and they were very impressed and touched. We want to thank you so much for your support for this ministry and for all of the boys that helped with raising the money for these first aid kits. It is so important here to take care of the health of children, learning how to use first aid kits.