Child Health Initiatives
The Children’s Health Initiative is a field-based screening and preventative medicine program funded through a grant from the Dorothea Haus Ross Foundation. The program provides regular outreach in over 30 communities through a traveling volunteer “clinic” open to all community members under 15 years of age.
During a Children’s Health Initiative, or “CHI,” children rotate through eight stations staffed by volunteer brigade members:
- Registration
- Hematocrit
- Height & Weight
- Vision Screening
- Dental Education
- Medical Consult
- Albendazol / Vitamin A
- Pharmacy
After registration, children receive a blood test for anemia and are weighed and measured. Vision screening is administered using a tumbling E chart, as a number of participating children are either preliterate or illiterate. At the dental education station, children are given a short presentation on proper oral hygiene, healthy eating, and the importance of regular dental checkups and are given a toothbrush. Children then move to the medical consult station, where they are assessed by a physician and, if necessary, are either given medications in the field pharmacy station or referred to a health center or STS clinic for further evaluation, testing, or follow-up. Vitamin A and/or Albendazol is given to children if appropriate.
Shoulder to Shoulder attempts to focus CHIs in areas where access to health care is lacking; many times this lack boils down to long distances needed to travel to reach established health centers, poor roads, difficult terrain, and a lack of suitable (or affordable) public and private transportation options.
Through the CHI program, then, children for whom it may be difficult to travel to health centers receive periodic screening and occasional interventions in their home communities; at the same time, Shoulder to Shoulder is able to reach communities and populations that otherwise may go unnoticed and underserved.
In all the communities in which it operates, the CHI program is able to harness the power of “an ounce of prevention” toward positive health outcomes and improved quality of life for children.
Link to Further Information, Documentation, and Orientation for Volunteers
How You Can Help
Honduras has no safety net for poor families in crisis. Every day our field workers encounter single mothers, people with disabilities and families living in extreme poverty whose very survival is at risk. Shoulder to Shoulder's trained professionals respond to these needs with wisdom and compassion using a fund for discretionary assistance to provide varied assistance on a case-by-case basis. Some forms of assistance include milk and food for sick and malnourished children as well as transportation and healthcare costs for severe medical cases. YOU can keep a family from falling into the abyss of survival crisis with a donation of $100-$200.
