All in a day's work

So you must all be wondering where I actually fit in time for any work, what with all the diving, trekking and trips to the islands. Work hasn’t featured a lot in my blog entries to date, so it must be about time to let you know what I’ve been up to during business hours.

A bit of background: my assignment here is an AVID assignment through Austraining International, funded by AusAID. I have been assigned to work with the Vanuatu Society for Disabled People to set up Early Intervention services for children with disabilities. My assignment outcomes include (but are not limited to) improving access to facilities and services in the community; increasing disability awareness; and creating a higher profile for disabilities in Vanuatu… Easy, right? I should be able to achieve all of that in 12 months! Hah!

So lets start small. My number one goal on arrival was to restart an early intervention group that had been running last year, but had folded due to a lack of staff (local or expat) to run it. My “Pikinini Group” is now running two mornings a week for two hours. There wasn’t much info on what had been done before, so I have developed a simple program loosely based on some multidisciplinary programs run in Northam. I have a regular group of kids attending - about 15 accessing the service and averaging about 6 kids per session. This has been made a whole lot easier thanks to a large amount of donated books, puzzles and toys from Australia – a huge thanks to friends, family, Northam colleagues and the Shoalhaven Crossroaders for all your generous donations! The program consists of a schedule of activities targeting a range of developmental skills through stories, songs, craft activities, dancing, obstacle courses and play. So far this has been a huge success – the families that attend really value the service and I have already seen huge improvements in the children’s skills!

Play dough time in Pikinini Group!

The next hurdle is to source a local counterpart who I can train up to run the group in the long term – it is not exactly sustainable if I continue to run the group as it will most likely fold again when I leave in February. This is proving to be a little more challenging. The society that I am working for currently receives NO funding (not from the government, not from donors, not from grants, nothing). There are only 3 paid staff members – one field worker, one accounts worker and the director. They are only just surviving off the sales from a car, which was donated by an expat lady who was leaving the country, but this is fast running out. This means that they will soon not have money to pay their power and phone bills, let alone fund programs and resources… The frustrating thing is, there are two case workers who travelled to Fiji two years ago to complete training in disability, however since returning there has not been any funding to pay them a wage and so their skills are not being utilised – these two local people are currently working elsewhere, not in the disability sector. So my current priority is to try to find some funds to secure at least one of these workers back on the team! In a country where everyone is looking for funding to run one program or another, grants and pools of money are quite competitive, but I am hopeful that something will come along soon!

Another issue we are currently working to overcome is the state of the VSDP building. My office is an old demountable that is not secure, is falling apart (the kitchen has been condemned and there are holes in the walls) and requires a lot of repair and maintenance. We do have quite a nice therapy space, with a mural that was painted by the women from the prison next door, but when there is no running water in the tap in the bathroom, the work environment is not ideal! The Port Vila Rotary club have teed up with Rotary New Zealand, and are planning repairs and extensions to the building through a series of Busy Bees, including a fence to secure the area, an outdoor play area – very exciting! – new kitchen and bathroom, and eventually new offices, with part of the building being demolished. Construction is due to start next month, which will be great!

A group of women in Port Vila have also recently formed their own NGO called Friends of People with Special Needs, whose role will be to fundraise, lobby and apply for grants and equipment for the centre. There is certainly a lot of good will around, and I am hopeful that we can really make a change. It’s quite motivating to have so many people wanting to help out!

I do have a loose kind of “multidisciplinary team” that I am working with here:

- Sue is an Occupational Therapist from Australia, full time mum of 7 month old Jesse and wife of Frank. Frank is carrying out a volunteer assignment in agriculture here, but has a keen interest in disability and can be quite handy with wheelchair adjustments and repairs! Sue and Frank have been in Vanuatu for 3 years or so, and have been a great resource for me finding my feet here and filling me in on what has been done in the past and how everything works. Sue is very keen to get in and help out, and we have done many a home visit over recent weeks with Jesse and their house girl Mercy in tow.

- There is one local case worker, Tom, who I share an office with. Tom has an interest in wheelchairs and is a great resource for locating families and getting in contact with new clients. Also a great opportunity for me to practice my Bislama as much as possible!

- Elison is the executive director of VSDP, a chief from the island of Pentecost with a heart of gold and lots of great ideas, just limited time and resources to follow them up.

- Dunstan is our accounts worker, also from Pentecost, and gets around on crutches due to childhood polio. Another great person to practice my Bislama with, and he often comes to find me to tell me to “spel smol” (take a short break) and “storian” (have a chat) with him in Bislama.

And that’s it for current staff! Hence there was a lot of excitement when I arrived, and a lot of hope placed in my being here. I am feeling a bit of pressure to deliver and create something sustainable that may have a chance of standing on its own two feet after I leave!

In the meantime, I am getting huge job satisfaction out of helping children and families at an individual level. As well as the group, I have been trying to get out and see some children at home. This is often easier said that done, and can be a bit of a logistical nightmare to organise at times, with no addresses, disconnected phones, a language barrier and limited transport - but hugely valuable to see the kids in their home environment and the limitations that go along with it.

Community visits have been made somewhat easier by my discovery of a community bus that we are able to use for free on the odd occasion when it is available. I am hoping to find a local bus driver who is happy to help out so that we can set up regular clinics, but for now I’m it! So I have been driving a left hand drive, manual, 12 seater transit van through the disorganised and pot-holed streets of Vila, through informal settlements with one-way dirt roads and potholes that turn into swimming pools after rain, undertaking 7-point turns in order to find my way out again. I’m telling you, it is an experience!!

So in short, my job has taken a turn from Speech Pathologist to “generic therapist”, wheelchair technician, bus driver, first aider (fixing various sores and infections of pikinini I encounter along the way as well as taking one to the hospital last week with a suspected asthma attack), and everything in between. A few additional skills to add to the resume!

One of my biggest highlights of the job so far has been a week with a Physiotherapist from an organisation called Altus Resource Trust in Auckland. Altus run programs throughout the Pacific, sourcing equipment and traveling to countries for about a week at a time running therapy clinics. We have been liaising with Altus for a couple of months, sending photos and information on clients we are working with, and they have sourced some wheelchairs and equipment for us that they arranged to be shipped over (my dealings with customs to get them through with the minimal fees and taxes possible are another story, for another time, but frustrating!!!). This resulted in a week with Sue (OT), Sue (Altus Physio) and Susannah (SP) – easy to remember names! - travelling around Port Vila and Efate carrying home visits and fitting wheelchairs and pushers for kids (and some adults) with a range of disabilities.

Some highlights of our week with Altus in pictures:

(The families have consented to me sharing these pictures with you)

One happy camper with her new "truck"

These two brothers have an unknown diagnosis - they both reportedly developed normally for the first couple of years of life, but then got sick. Neither of the boys are able to sit independently, so prior to fitting them with chairs they were constantly either lying down inside at home or being carried. A wonderful, caring family to work with.

Doctor Suz to the rescue - re-dressing some nasty looking infected sores on this little one, whose legs were severely burned in a fire 2 years ago when a mosquito net caught alight. Poor thing is petrified of white people - but her legs are healing nicely! We have given her a pusher for transport in the interim while she waits for a wheelchair.

One of the more challenging wheelchair fittings - a gorgeous seven-year-old with hydrocephaly

Making friends with the locals

"Truck blong Anna" - we managed to get a small smile out of her as we were leaving!

The week was a huge success, we were able to provide seven kids and two adults with appropriate seating and transportation and provide the families with hope that they never thought they would receive! And Sue is hoping to come back in about 4 months time to follow up, and possibly bring an OT and a wheelchair technician from Altus along as well.

I’m sure there is lots more to tell, but I might leave the work update on that positive note. I hope there are a lot more success stories to follow!

Until next time, ale gudnaet.