It has been almost a week since the Malaria Prevention volunteers have arrived, and in that time they been nothing but spectacular.
Their main concern is implementing an extensive annual evaluation survey throughout all of GHEI’s Malaria Prevention Program catchment areas. The survey consists of three parts; the first collecting general census information and two additional questionnaires to be filled out for each woman of reproductive age and child under five respectively. Depending on how many people live in each household, implementing the survey can take the interviewer anywhere from a very short amount of time to several hours. Data from each survey is then brought back to the volunteer team for review before the interviewer can move on to visiting the next house.Administering the survey is a huge undertaking. This year GHEI has 17 trained interviewers, recruited from our local full-time staff, community health workers and volunteer teachers. These interviewers are split into three teams, each with a lead interviewer and interviewer-in-training along with three Summer Serve and Learn volunteers who have each taken the role of Data Coordinator, Logistics Coordinator, or Field Coordinator. The use of these defined positions for SSL volunteers is new this year, but has so far shown to be extremely beneficial. The volunteers are taking ownership of their responsibilities and each making a great contribution to some small part of the survey project.
The volunteers engaged in several trainings on GHEI’s Malaria Prevention Program and data collection before surveys began. They were incredibly enthusiastic and receptive to the trainings, taking detailed notes and asking well-thought out questions. Once the teams officially started surveys on Friday, they were professional and the volunteers were ready to effectively manage interview teams and code household surveys. All of the teams were based together in one of GHEI’s classrooms on Friday, where there was an air of positive energy as people happily dug into their work.
Everybody mostly took the weekend off from surveys- some elected to do some coding- and spent most of their time relaxing and taking part in cultural activities around Humjibre. Saturday morning brought a visit to Happy’s farm to learn about small-scale farming and cocoa production in Ghana. In the evening, volunteers participated in a community-wide workshop on the traditional Kete style of drumming and dancing followed by an informal workshop on the now popular Azonto dance style at a local drink spot. On Sunday, many volunteers attended local churches, tried their hands at doing their own laundry and participated in a pick-up football match with some of Humjibre’s youth.
We have a full house with nine volunteers (including one awesome coordinator, Amy Henderson Riley) who are all a pleasure to have around. They have fun, but also work hard and are excited about the project at hand. At the close of work on Friday, 36 surveys were completed, and we hope to reach our goal of 250 by the end of this week.
Awesome!
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