Kenya: Irish Franciscan Missionary receives international health education award

Sr Bernadette Nealon and Lillian Dajoh with awards

Irish Franciscan Missionary of St Joseph, Sr Bernadette Nealon from Limerick city, has been presented by WiRED International with its Health Education Champion Award for Outstanding Leadership in the Community Health Education Programme in the Kisumu region of western Kenya.

WiRED - short for World Information Resources for Education and Development - a US-based non-profit organisation has been delivering medical and health education to conflict-affected and under-developed regions since 1997. It provides health education by delivering programmes, equipment, and co-ordinated instruction in remote regions across 15 countries. All of its educational programmes are technology-based and peer reviewed. Complete health training programmes can be operated in remote communities entirely on solar equipment, thereby, opening health education to people who have been left behind by other programmes. WiRED resources - online and on portable media - are cost free to users.

The WiRED International e-library of more than 300 medical and health education modules enables physicians and nurses, patients, health workers and communities to address the prevention and treatment of both infectious and non-communicable disease in developing areas of the world. The more than 300 topics are as diverse as maternal health and hand washing, rheumatic heart disease and Ebola, clean water strategies, and home caregiver training.

With these interactive training programs, communities and medical professionals alike can educate themselves through the material released on its website and also distributed on portable media for communities off the grid. These training modules are developed by WiRED International's team of physicians, medical editors, imagers and technicians along with a host of other medical experts. The team continually updates the existing material and creates new modules to provide a rich source of health information. It has supported the KUAP Pandipieri Health Programme in Kisumu for the past 15 years.

KUAP (Kisumu Urban Apostolate Programme) is a non-governmental organisation created by its main stakeholders - the Archdiocese of Kisumu and the Mill Hill Missionaries. It is a leading humanitarian organisation dedicated to fighting poverty and social justice placing special emphasis on investing in children, youth, women, and other vulnerable members of the community in Pandipieri. In the neighbourhoods where KUAP works, most people live in shacks, often without any future prospects. Its programmes improve the living conditions of residents in the slums and annually provides assistance to thousands of residents. It does this by using the power of their own community. Its vision is "the gospel fully at work creating a united Kisumu community bonded together through solidarity, spirituality and neighbourhood ministry."

Sr Bernadette arrived in Kenya in 1998 to work with disadvantaged communities. "I came to work in the Archdiocese of Kisumu" she says, and "was given the mandate to work in the informal settlements of Kisumu city. I was shocked at the living conditions of the people, but I was overjoyed at their joyfulness, spontaneity and the care they gave to those in need from the little they had."

In 2002, the Community Health Information Centre was established starting with a focus on HIV/AIDS, and has expanded to a broad health education programme on a wide range of critical topics. Sr. Bernadette uses WiRED's health education programmes to train community health workers, who, in turn, train community members in home-based care for bed-ridden clients and also trains people who are caring for children at home.

The centre provides facilities for students from medical schools to use the modules to conduct their research and prepare for their exams. Students can study on their own at home, then visit the centre to be tested on the material. Many live a long way off, so access through the download programme stands to expand the reach of these health education courses considerably.

Professor Gary Selnow, Executive Director of WiRED said: "I have been working with Sr Bernadette and the staff at Pandipieri since 2002, and I have seen the remarkable outcomes of her dedication first hand. She is a blessing to the Kenyan people and a testament to the extraordinary impact one person can have on the lives of so many disadvantaged folks. In addition to the larger impact she has had by way of the Pandi organization, she has demonstrated the power of helping people one-to-one. On several occasions, I have seen her reach into her purse and generously give her own money to a mother who needed medications for her child and to a young man who needed tuk tuk fare for a ride to the hospital. She has a paltry income and yet she shares it so freely with the neediest in the community. Sr. Bernadette has inspired my own work to provide health training in low-resource regions around the world. From my viewpoint, her generosity of heart and her dedication to helping others serve as remarkable examples of the very best of the human spirit."
Gary points out that "our programme in Kisumu would never have materialised or expanded without Sr Bernadette and her team.

Together, they organised our current health outreach programmes that have trained so many people through the facilities at Pandipieri and Obunga. They have made WiRED's community health training programme a success beyond our imagination - last year graduating more than 130 people with certificates for completing thousands of modules available at both locations and in our online Health Learning Centre."

Another member of the KUAP - Pandipieri team, Lillian Dajoh, who is a graduate of the Community Health Information Centre and is now its co-ordinator was also presented with a similar ward recognising her contribution to the work of the centre.

When, as then Chairman of Misean Cara, I visited KUAP in October 2014, I planted a tree as a symbol of growth and renewal. As that tree grows bigger and stronger, it is wonderful to see the evolution and growth that continues at the centre that provides a diverse programme of health and social services for the poor and marginalised. Warm congratulations to Sr. Bernadette on the award recognising her work.

For more information, visit: www.wiredhealthresources.net and http://pandipieri.org/mission-objective-vision/

(Matt Moran is author of book - The Legacy of Irish Missionaries Lives On - which is available online from www.onstream.ie)