Service au Sahel held a two-day training in neonatal resuscitation at the Provincial Hospital in Moussoro. The course was held on November 12 and 13 and 16 medical staff from the hospital were trained.
The program teaches skills in caring for neonates with a focus on those babies who have difficulties in breathing after birth. The participants improved their practical skills in basic life support, working on clinical scenarios in small groups. Implementation of a set of simple measures like bag and mask ventilation has been shown to reduce early neonatal mortality up to 50% in the low resource setting.
The entrance to the hospital in Moussoro
Of the 16 medical staff trained, five were from the Maternity department of the hospital.
The training on neonatal resuscitation is the second collaboration Service au Sahel has had at the hospital in Moussoro. The first was a dental training in November 2019.
2020 had plenty of success and challenges. The biggest challenge was the financial crisis which forced the closure of our Markas al Nour education center. Nonetheless, the center reopened its doors in order to keep offering high quality instruction. Our activities in Moussoro and Hadjer Hadid were slowed down by covid-19, but were still able to adapt and continue. We will continue working together on our common objectives in education and development in 2021.
Here are the number of beneficiaries from our activities in 2020:
Project
Beneficiaries
Markas al Nour – N’Djamena
288
Education classes – Moussoro
203
Animal health videos – Moussoro
120
Water, health, and mapping – Hadjer Hadid
3800
Sewing and distributing masks – Hadjer Hadid
800
Health and cultural videos – Hadjer Hadid
100
Total
5311
We would like to thank all those who helped us continue advancing our goals.
Service au Sahel Tchad, working with the Provincial representative of the Ministry of Youth and Sport in the Bahr el Gazel, launched a one-week computer training class for the young people involved in different associations.
The ceremony took place at the House of Culture in Moussoro. This video was taken by the National Office of Audiovisual Media (ONAMA) et published during the evening news on 20 July 2020.
2019 was a difficult year for the association. Even with many successes, the general financial climate in Chad slowed down several of our projects. Nonetheless, our work in education and development impacted thousands of people:
Projet
Bénéficiaires
Markas al Nour
818
Cours décentralisés
49
Markaz Attafahum
13
Projets de Développement – Hadjer Hadid
516
Projets de Développement – Moussoro
1075
Total
2471
We would like to thank all those who helped us continue advancing our goals.
In January 2020 the association, in partnership with the regional federation of animal farmers from the Bahr el Gazel, and with the technical support of the Ministry of Animal Husbandry, gave a training on animal health.
The videos are available on the following Youtube playlist:
The videos were done in the local language, Dazaga, also called Goran.
A new level 1 computer class took place between December 2019 and January 2020, focusing on Microsoft Word. The following video shows what the class was like and the students’ reactions to what they have learned.
A dental health training and clinic was held at the provincial hospital in Moussoro, Bahr el Gazel from November 1 – 8.
The training started with two days of theory: the anatomy of teeth and gums and nerves along with the uses of explorers and forceps and elevators. After learning the theory, seven local men began seeing their first patients.
Their first attempts took a long time: some teeth broke partially as they learned how much force to apply and how best to gain leverage. As the week went on, they increased in skill and confidence. By mid-week, they were needing tools faster than they could be sterilized, and had to slow down. By the end of the week the men had gotten into a rhythm and could skillfully extract even the most stubborn molars.
We were slightly worried about having enough patients during the week because the local radio station wasn’t working and so we didn’t have an easy way to publicize what we were doing. But we needn’t have been worried—good news travels fast and we had more patients by the end of the week than we had time to treat.
At the end of the week we held a ceremony to give out certificates to the seven men who had completed the training. Dental instruments were given either to one man or to pairs of men who were working in the same place. During that ceremony, the representative of the Health Minister said the following:
“Having trained dental personnel in Moussoro is like ‘taking a big thorn’ out of the flesh of the people of Moussoro.”
Representative of the Health Minister
And the initial feedback we’ve gotten has confirmed this. One doctor who was trained called to say “thank you thank you thank you”. “I’ve just arrived and the people of Michemire [105km west of Moussoro] are so thankful that I can pull teeth. Before they used to have to travel for help.” Finally, a friend of mine overheard someone saying “the international NGOs who are here are very busy but we don’t know what they’re doing all the time. You guys have done something concrete by helping pull our rotten teeth.”
Service au Sahel is working hard in the Bahr el Gazel. Here is the latest news:
Classes
During summer vacation, we are pleased to offer several classes to local students. We finished one English class and have a new one started. A computer class has also started.
Previous English course
Rakiss and Bill teaching the current English course
Development
In addition, Service au Sahel was able to offer a well to a village 20km away from Moussoro.
Moussoro is a town of about 50,000 people on the edge of the Sahara desert. Service au Sahel has taught computer classes in Moussoro since 2010 through a partnership with a local association. While teaching those computer classes, one of Service au Sahel’s teachers found out that there was no accessible map of the city of Moussoro.
So with the help of his computer students, they made this map of Moussoro with the neighborhoods roughly in the right spot.
