The need for health education becomes apparent on our Dawakpersebi trip

Submitted by Michaela Sholes

The MoM team shared an encouraging experience having been invited to visit Dawakpersebi, one of the future recipients of the ETCHE bag-drop program! Noah, our local contact, introduced us to the community and their leaders and helped us facilitate group discussions to identify relevant health challenges and needs. During the discussion, we had an impromptu health education lesson after learning that Schistosomiasis and its related symptoms are highly prevalent in the community.

There were a number of health challenges discussed during our group meeting, ranging from typical issues (like asthma, allergies, and helminth infections) to more severe challenges like the situation experienced by this little girl. She was left scarred around her eyes following an infection in her face. Although she has been to the local clinic to address the infection which has somewhat subsided, she is still experiencing pain. We hope to collaborate with health professionals to help provide the best information possible regarding recommendations for clinic follow-up and prevention as much as possible.

Our host Moses and his family opened their home to us and were an absolute delight! Moses is the community youth leader and has been working with them for the last 5 years. He was very active in the group discussions and we appreciated his perspectives. His wife, Ayeki, is an amazing cook and made the most delicious palava sauce and boiled yam for dinner!

Rex, Melissa, Ben and I thoroughly enjoyed our visit (despite the crazy roads to get there!) and I cannot express how much I am looking forward to continued work with this community and others like them. This on-the-ground, community-led collaboration is what MoM is all about and we are thrilled to play an active role!

Let the Drops begin!!

We are all very excited about our first full fledged health education drop run. After 18 years of working to get the approvals and change regulations we’ll finally be taking healthcare to rural villages.

The ground Team: Michaela, Ben, Rex and Melissa have gone to a rural community to monitor the in-community reactions to the first set of drops. They will arrive there later this afternoon and spend a night in the village ready to share and document the first drop tomorrow morning.

Meanwhile the volunteer pilot, Patricia Mawuli and her student and co pilot Lydia Wetsi, are preparing the aircraft, bags, and materials for the drop.

Tomorrows run will be to 20 rural villages earlier identified by the queen mothers as target communities. The first contact materials being prepared include an introduction, a small questionnaire and some telephone credit for the community health rep to call us.

We’re often asked why we wish to use small aircraft for these runs. The ground team, traveling by road, will spend around 3 hours getting to first drop site. By comparison total flight time for this initial run to all 20 communities will take just over one hour in our Rotax powered CH701. Attempting this trip would require more than a week difficult travel by road, and would still not reach all 20 communities.

These first drops are more about first contact and relationship building. Future drops will contain more community specific health education materials and training invitations.

We do more before 6:00 AM ...........

This morning it was planned that we all rested after the exceptionally busy weekend's activities. HUH! Rest? Sleep? Recovery? No such chance .... not here!

After finishing complicated funding related discussions last night, we hit the various metaphorical haybales at around 10pm... then, Matthew had to leave at 05:20, and Rex left the accommodation block to fly at 05:30 with his PPG. (Rex has a special permission to fly his Powered Paraglider for this week and has found that the wind is very limiting as to when it can fly). Happily, the young lady we had in Quarantine is now able to return to school as a day girl as she regains her strength and some weight (she was VERY sick), and so we have, in conjunction with her and her sponsor, arranged a special support for the re-integration. Therefore, at 05:50 a taxi arrives to take her to school, and she leaves, accompanied by Michaela, who will now be gone for a couple of hours sorting that whole scenario....

The AvTech girls then suddenly appeared from their dorms at 06:30 forgetting that this was Monday, the nominal 'day off' in our week (well they had an exam yesterday on First Responder training and they WANT to be in classes today....). Jenny, meanwhile, is getting ready to fly back to Germany later today after flying in to for the weekend to help out with the various activities... Melissa will spend most of the day working on the practical exams for the girls First Responder programme and, as always, on the 'rest day' there is lots of hand washing, cleaning and preparations for the busy week ahead.

Oh, did I forget, we also have a meeting with Air Traffic later today to work towards streamlining our flight plans and RT operations. (Here we need to file for ALL flights, even for the PPG - which makes perfect sense once you understand the environment!)...

Oh, and the car has a fault on the oil sensor that shorted the starting circuits... and the old grass slasher blew its gearbox last week, and the new one donated by Sid (THANKS SID) and transported by Huub (THANKS Huub) is not directly compatible with the tractor and needs modified... and we hope that Mr Solo will be well enough to be back at work this week too...

In addition, this week has planned bag-drops to a number of communities, and all the usual work that happens.... add to that a film crew from France 24 who are excited about the operations here and the Bag-Drop and.... well, as I write, it is already over one hour into my day.... and the birds are complaining that they are woken by the sound of my keyboard chatter instead of waking me up by the sound of their chirping... (I must learn to type more quietly so as not to deflate the birds egos, then walk out and smile at them as they gather in the trees to wake me up, pretending they managed it...)

This is not the way of life for everybody... it is not easy... it is not without tears... not without upsets.... not without frustrations... not without worries... but it is about changing lives - and that is certainly the nett outcome of it all...

Thank you for reading... sharing... and supporting us all!

Fly ME Day!

Today is Fly Me Day.... we have invited over 150people this year, but with a difference.... we have focused on Queen Mothers and the children from their community. Twenty Queen Mothers have each been invited to come with five of their community children. In addition we have invited twenty from Techiman and ten from another school nearby, and of course Battorkope and a another nearby village who are the first beneficiaries of the airborne outreach activities.

Sadly, some have not understood the value of what we do. Some have asked for money to come to the event, and T Shirts and caps... We simply do not respond to such an approach. If the community cannot make the efforts themselves, they cannot benefit. The cost of getting to us from the communities in question is less than they spend on a new dress - and we believe that they need to demonstrate a 'desire for self-priority adjustment' as a primary change in attitude towards greater health.

What they do not know is that we will be giving out prizes and gifts to the children and a small financial gift for development of their community.

THis years line up of Pilots is Melissa Pemberton (9G ZAE), Patrick Ata (9G ZAC), Patricia Mawuli Nyekdzi (9G ZKT) and Capt. Yaw (9G ZAF)...
Lydia, Juliet and Emmanuella are on 'loadmaster duties' - that is putting passengers in and out of the planes!

Jenny Jocksh has flown in for the weekend to help and is running the passenger control - her title is 'Flight Line Queen' (control of the access to and from the flight line and photo taking with a polaroid (thanks to the Pembertons) of each child who flies...

Michaela Hayes is on 'first Aid Post and Queen Mother interaction, community liason' - probably the most important role for outcomes down the line.

Ben Sholes is 'Ring Master' and gets to try to herd the cats - getting cars in the right place and people control (includes all the headaches - poor Ben!!!)
Two staff have volunteered for security roles (Lele and Bernard)
Many students and friends will be helping too, special thanks to Paul H (safety car and fix it man), Soumya and family (marshalling and passenger pre- post-interaction), Aunty Judy (flight line support and gift support).

Special thanks go to Millward Brown for their financial support this year. We are, once again, running the event at a loss and thank WAASPS for covering over 60% of the event. 
We see the importance of this event and look forward to sharing the outcomes with you tomorrow!

(NOTE: We do not announce the date of this event in advance, except to invited guests, since we can get overwhelmed with 'opportunists'. If we exceed 300 people on the airfield we need to shut down operations under the regulations, and it is simply a way of working, but it makes it hard to gain support for the event. )

The Okavango Delta by Rex Pemberton

Friend of MoM and director of "The Calling" Rex Pemberton has released a new video of his trip to the Okavango Delta. Beautiful work Rex!

Okavango Delta Botswana from Rex Pemberton on Vimeo.

Fly me day and Documentary

Submitted by Rex Pemberton

One hundred and eleven children, five hours of flying and over three hours of video footage later we have completed ‘Fly Me Day’. It was a massive success.

Imagine; a strip of cloud spreads across the horizon lighting up in a bright orange glow. The airplanes are pulled out of the hanger slowly, carefully, lighting up pink as they come out into the rays of a fresh day. Dewdrops are still on the ground as the four pilots have an intense focus, checking and re-checking the control surfaces, fuselage and engines. The pre-flights are always important to any pilot, but on this day, I noticed just a little extra focus.

 I could feel the sense the excitement, fear & apprehension, as the first bus of school children’s pulled into that airfield at 7.00am. From that moment, I knew this day was going to be special.

Melissa, Erin, Jonathan and Patricia wasted no time lining up the well-maintained aircraft. A heavy day of flying lay ahead. One hundred and Eleven school kids from villages all around Ghana. None of them has been in an airplane before, let alone a light aircraft without any doors! 

In no time, the call came over a cracking radio “Start engines in 3,2,1 start”. Four engines fired to life in perfect time.

The aircraft rolled down the grass runway and took to the air in perfect sequence, my 7Ds red record light was flashing as many kids realized the dream of flight.

“Once you have tasted flight, you will always walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward”.

Well I am sure we touched some kid’s lives after this remarkable day. I am sure they are looking skyward.

However there was a higher purpose than just fun. Jonathan and Patricia had a plan. Young adults that showed potential for learning, enthusiasm and a passion for flight we selected to spend 2 weeks with the AV TECH academy. From this small select group they may select one or two new students to be sponsored through four years of flight training. It is an opportunity that will change their lives forever. It is very cool. Fly Me Day was a massive success.

With ‘Fly Me Day’ out of the way, Melissa and I turn a strong focus towards the film and getting what we need to bring this story to life.

The first part of any good documentary is making sure you have a strong story line, then video to match. Within this story Matthew, Patricia and Jonathan make up the major charters. They will be the foundation of the film. So now our focus is extracting the individual stories. This is done by a casual ‘chat chat’ interview.

That enables Melissa and I to focus the core story and work out what shots we need to fill an editing timeline, to construct a film. It is a long time consuming and sometimes frustrating process. Melissa and I have learnt that in West Africa not everything works to a plan. Almost nothing does! So we take each day one at a time.

We have a mountain to climb ahead of us; sometimes it feels overwhelming as only 10% of the work is in the video shooting. 90% lays in postproduction. Wow maybe I need a production team for this…  Maybe this is the start of a new chapter in my life. Maybe it is time to take RPMP Productions and register it as a business name! 

Now my question is do we edit a trailer clip and try to get funding for the film? Or. Do we take on this massive project by ourselves?

Hmmm… Does anyone know of any production agencies that could help fund this film?

First Impressions

Submitted by Rex Pemberton

It feels like my right hand has had an operation. It feel like, I had my video camera surgically attached to my arm… 

It is just that I can’t put it down. Everywhere I look there is a story to shoot or photo to take.

It almost seems impossible to wrap your head around this operation, to understand all the moving components, the way it operates and the amount of people that are touched by it.

The operation chugs away like a steam train. The train moves slowly yet with great power and determination.  This train will never stop moving, it has an endless track.  The track is uphill and the mountain it climbs continues as far as the eye can see.

I must admit, when I left San Francisco with Melissa, I was nervous. I did not know what to expect. I was asking myself over an over in a very selfish way, is there a story behind this operation? Are we really going to be changing lives? And how can I make a difference to these people when there is so much that needs to be done?

It is easy to turn a blind eye when we live in such an amazing place like the USA or Australia. It is easy to forget. When you are here however, immersed in a country that needs help, you can never turn away. You are fixated on what needs to be done.  The western world falls into a shadow in the back of your mind.

You may have been wondering why Melissa and I took such a long time to blog… It is because of a complete emersion into this operation, culture shock and trying to understand all the moving parts of this train.  It because we now have an intense focus. A focus that has developed in a very short time, we are now shoveling coal helping the train move forward.

Within two days I had answered all of my questions… Firstly YES there is a story to tell. An amazing story. Now the question has changed for me. As an amateur filmmaker can I do it justice?

The second question was are we really going to change lives? Easy.. The answer is YES… we already have and it does not matter if you only change one at a time.  We are making a difference.

There is too much to shoot (video), such an amazing story to tell. Very little time to do it all.  It almost feels like another Mt Everest to climb.

“We have set an unachievable goal. In fact we don’t really have a goal, it is more like creating a sustainable legacy.” Captain Yaw.

These words ring around inside my head every day, and every day I am here they grow stronger as I release the size and pace of the undertaking.

Now I get it. After 6 days of being in Ghana I finally get how the lifestyle and operation that is WAASPS (flying school), MOM (medicine On the Move) & AvTech (plans for a CNC machine operation) all work to make one another exist, to make this train move forward.

They are three different operations all run by Jonathan, Mathew and Patricia. This operation is unique, challenging and always going at full stream ahead.

The best part is we are making a difference every day.

 In our short time here:

• We have built a school for a local Fulani (nomadic) Tribe that lives by Jonathan’s house.
• We have conducted school lessons with the kids of the Tribe.
• We have saved a four year old’s broken hand from infection and possibly amputation. It had swollen up to the size of a golf ball and yesterday Mathew, Melissa and I took her to hospital for a quick operation to drain the pus out of her hand. Now we are:
• Trying to educate the parents how to give their child the right dose of antibiotics and why it is important to keep the bandages on. This will be an on-going project for the rest of our stay.
• Education is the key to sustainability here. If you ever donate money to Africa make sure it goes to Education.
• We have flown, fixed and fueled airplanes to make sure the operation continues to run.
• We are building a wind turbine for a Medicine On The Move Garden (this Garden will demonstrate how remote villages can live completely off the land in a sustainable way.   This is Mathew’s brain child and passion).
• This Saturday Melissa, Jonathan, Patricia and Erin will fly 100 School kids during “Fly Me Day”. This day is an effort to bring the importance of aviation to school children of Ghana. My camera will be out to capture the smiles.
• My camera has captured every moment. A task that many underestimate.

We have had a wild ride so far. Melissa and I are now strapped in tight and committed to the entire ride.

This will not be our only trip to Kpong and this little Grass Runway in West Africa…

More to come.