Kinney speaks about global health issues
Spent two weeks with Medicine for MaliBy ANGELA BURCH Messenger staff writer
LOHRVILLE - The average family in the west African country of Mali lives on an annual income of $210. That average family has seven children. The infant mortality rate by the age of five is one in four and the average life expectancy is 48 years old.
Tami Kinney, a Lohrville native, spent two weeks in Mali this summer. She spoke about her experience during the J.J. Hands Library's annual open house Sunday afternoon. The event is an annual event designed to help promote the library and the friends of the library group, said one of the directors, Jane Beschorner. Despite the cool and cloudy weather on Sunday afternoon, volunteers had to come up with extra chairs for the nearly 40 people who attended the open house.
Kinney, a registered nurse, traveled to Mali with the non-profit group Medicine for Mali in June for a global public health internship towards her master's degree in public health.
Medicine for Mali was established in 2000 by retired physician Dr. Steve DeVore, his wife Jill DeVore, of Des Moines, and their daughter Dr. Elise DeVore, who currently lives in Philadelphia. They founded the organization once Elise DeVore realized the dire need of medical care for people in Mali while she was in medical school at the University of Iowa, said Kinney.
"The trip that I took was purely a public health trip, but the group has held medical clinics before, established clean water in eight villages, worked with microfinance and still distributes eyeglasses through the Lions Club," Kinney said.
During her internship, she and four other people from the Des Moines area helped with the Girls in School program, worked towards providing additional training for birth attendants - who only have to have a sixth-grade education to deliver babies - and insecticide treated bednet distribution.
"In the village that I spent time in, of 800, there were four girls that went through high school. The Girls in School project that we worked on was huge and we're trying to get more girls in school," she said. All of the kids are offered school through sixth grade, but they must take a test to go on to high school. Most of the boys automatically go on to high school, so the girls are the focus of the group, she said.
"The girls are excited about knowing other stuff in the world. Many of them want to come back to their village and use what they learn to help improve farming through fertilizer and watering," she said. "They want to learn how to feed their families better."
The program has a great deal of potential, she said.
"What we want to do with our Girls in School program is to improve the communication between the teachers and parent groups in the community, increase the teachers' training to increase change and get things to happen," she said.
Education is not the only source of need in the villages, Kinney said.
Through the help of Rotary International, Medicine for Mali has drilled seven clean water wells in the region and three mini water distribution systems. In eight villages, with 8,000 people, people come from long distances to access and carry the clean water, she said.
The microfinance committee that Kinney's group was with has given out 236 loans which range between $50 to $75, 70 percent of which were given to women.
"They teach the women to buy grain when there is a surplus and save it for when there is a deficit," she said. "They show them they can make money doing that."
The group also worked on a nutrition program, Kinney said. She said they're teaching the women how to cook and feed the children.
"Typically the wives feed the men first and the kids get what is left over, so the kids are not as well-nourished," she said.
While Kinney was in Mali, there was a group of engineering students from Iowa State University in the region. The students built stoves for the Malian people made out of termite mounds. The termites ground up straw perfectly enough that after about three minutes, the stove would quit smoking. The stoves burn very hot but slowly to eliminate the smoke. Before these smokeless stoves, the smoke the women inhaled is a rough equivalent of smoking three packs of cigarettes a day, she said.
The groups can get some supplies from other, larger cities, but she said they mostly rely on bringing their own supplies.
Her group brought along 1,300 pairs of eyeglasses, Kinney said. When the doctor can come out, they have more equipment available, but while she was there, a doctor was not available. The group knew the prescription of the glasses was correct once the person had an "ah" moment seeing an object in the distance clearly for the first time.
"They would spend an hour picking out a case for their glasses. They have nothing, no possessions but they didn't care. They were just happy they could see," she said.
She also worked with the Malaria Reduction Bednet program.
"One of our projects was that we worked to get more insecticide treated bednets. We tried to get kids and adults to sleep under bednets," she said.
They also teach life-saving skills, she said.
"Life saving skills means washing and cleaning and how to care for yourself," she said.
In villages where there is no electricity, plumbing or running water, teaching people basic principles of hygiene and cleanliness can be very effective, she said. The hospitals in the capital city of Bamako, which do have electricity, do not have garbage disposals. The garbage concentrates in troughs which run through the city.
Kinney is writing grants to give birth attendants more skills and training.
"We'd like them to have more survival skills since people come to them for other medical advice beyond what a sixth grade education can provide," she said.
Even though she was on the other side of the world, the communication was not impossible, Kinney said. The group that she traveled with has Malian staff, drivers and translators. Dr. Yaye Danfakha is a member of Medicine for Mali representing the group in Mali. The language in the village is Bamabara.
"A lot of the teenagers in the village wanted to learn English and they would help you speak Bamabara," she said.
Above all, Kinney said the people are truly beautiful and appreciative of anything they can get. She was also amazed by what the Malians can tolerate and endure.
"One patient had inguinal hernia surgery. For anesthetic - two Tylenol," she said.
Contact Angela Burch at 573-2141 or aburch@messengernews.net
