long journey home

UAC-CP students always have a way of putting things into perspective for me.  The other day, for instance, I was a bit homesick; I was feeling particularly far away from my Minnesota/South Dakota friends and family. Then, I chatted with Soledad.

Twenty-three-year-old UAC-CP Education student Soledad Carcasi is from a community named San Fermin in the province of Apolo located in northern Bolivia near the border with Peru. When she travels home to visit her family during summer and winter breaks, the two day trip home takes her through the capital city of La Paz, over Bolivia's high plain, across part of Lake Titicaca, and past the border into Peru. One of the final legs of her journey home takes Soledad across a river back into Bolivia on a balsa boat.  From there, she walks even farther before reaching her family's home.

That sound's exhausting, I think, and insist that there must be another way that doesn't require travel through another country. "There is another route," she admits, "but transportation isn't frequent." After a 17 hour ride on a bus from La Paz to the town of Apolo, this way home requires that she walk for 4 -5 days through the jungle.  I ask if she's ever walked it and she admits that she has "various times."

Like many UAC-CP students, her home community of San Fermín offers no educational opportunities past the eighth grade. Determined that she graduate from high school, Soledad's parents took her and her sister to the "nearby" town of Apolo.  There, the two girls shared a room and were looked after by a friend of their parents.

"During vacation [from high school], I was supposed to stay in Apolo," Soledad explained. "But I was only 14 or 15 -years-old and I always wanted to go home. So I would make the 4-5 day journey on foot--along with 2 or 3 other friends, including my sister."

Knowing what I know of rural Bolivia, I try to imagine the logistics of young teens making this trek.  I ask where they would sleep at night.  "En el monte," she tells me laughing. Essentially, they would just lay down in the middle of nowhere in the jungle and sleep until the sun came up. "Then, we'd get up and start walking for another day."

This August, Soledad will yet again travel across international borders to arrive at a place she will call "home." As one of two young women chosen from the UAC-CP Education Department to participate in a 10-month long teaching exchange program through Amity Institute, the UAC-CP student body president will travel from the College in Carmen Pampa to Adams Spanish Immersion School in St. Paul, Minnesota.  Though obviously thousands of miles farther away, it will take less than half the amount of time for Soledad to be greeted by her host family at the MSP airport than it does for her to visit her family in San Fermín.

Considering, I'm sure Soledad won't mind the things that cause most of us to complain: security checks, cramped seats, and airline food.  I wonder if she'll find it curious that in a journey of more than 1,000 miles, the only signifant amount of walking she will probably do will be on moving walkways between gates in Miami.

Always welcoming a new perspective, I'm excited to hear about her journey.

cpf board member brings unique experience

When Becky Monnens joined Carmen Pampa Fund's Board of Directors in 2013, she was no stranger to the cause.

As a volunteer at the College in Carmen Pampa from 2000-2003, Becky played an integral part of day to day operations. "I worked on development of projects and proposals with college staff and faculty, organized and coordinated visits from donors, partners (South Dakota State University, St. Catherine University, etc.) and others. I also was the staff advisor for the student-run food cooperative, occasionally taught English classes, managed the computer lab and other various tasks."

Becky pictured in 2001 with UAC-CP founder Sr. Damon Nolan. She volunteered at the College for three years.

The experience of volunteering at the College gave her a clear sense of self. "I learned so much about myself in those years that has continued to influence how I work and play in my life now."

In addition to sharing her time and talents with the College and Carmen Pampa Fund over the years, Becky has consistently been a generous donor.  "It's easy to donate to CPF because I know how incredibly useful my funds are in Carmen Pampa. I know how hard everyone at the College works to make good use of the funds. I've kept in touch with a number of students (now graduates) from the time I lived there. I know what a huge difference their education has made for not only them and their family, but also their communities. The effects of my funds multiply rapidly and for many years to come. You can't make a better investment than that."

Becky, Program Officer at The McKnight Foundation, makes one extra "easy" step to ensure that her employer matches her donations and volunteer time.

Becky gets an extra big return for her investment thanks to her employer, The McKnight Foundation. "My company matches both monetary donations and volunteer time.  I fill out a form that my company provides. This form is then verified and signed by CPF and returned to my company and a matching donation is made. It's a very easy process." Becky encourages other CPF donors to verify whether their employers provide matching gift options.

Why has Becky dedicated nearly half of her life to supporting the College and Carmen Pampa Fund? "The students," she said.  "It is rare that you experience the kind of dedication and hard work in a college student that is so common in UAC-CP students. Their drive to overcome poverty and a multitude of other obstacles is inspiring."

prevention, detection, and diagnosis: addressing tuberculosis and leishmaniasis

One of the many things that makes the UAC-CP unique is its emphasis on practical learning. Students in all five major areas of study at the College are required to participate in extension activities that not only provide applicable professional experiences, but also offer important services to marginalized populations.

Third semester UAC-CP Nursing students and Public Health Program Coordinator Angelica Quisbert.

One example of this focus on social service extension activities is a new public health project launched this year in the Nursing Department. “Prevention, Detection, and Diagnosis: Addressing Tuberculosis and Leishmaniasis in Yungas, Bolivia” responds to the needs of people infected with or at risk of being infected with leishmaniasis and tuberculosis. Both leishmaniasis and tuberculosis are relatively common and potentially fatal diseases within the College’s service area.* In addition to preventing and diagnosing the diseases, the project also serves as a model for other regional public health centers and provides UAC-CP Nursing students with practical experience as public health educators.

For the first semester of 2013, 25 students from the UAC-CP Nursing Department worked to implement the first phase of the project, which included a comprehensive public health survey of households in 14 communities, two K-12 schools, and the College (a population of approximately 3,500 people).

Before they could implement the survey, all third semester Nursing students participated in multiple training sessions that covered topics such as: introduction to tuberculosis, leishmaniasis, dengue, and chagas disease; identification of symptoms of leishmaniasis and tuberculosis, collection of sputum samples, surveying, social interaction, etc.

Once they were trained and organized logistically, they went out in groups of two to visit communities and do an “active search” of people with tuberculosis and leishmaniasis. In order to find people at home before they left to work in their fields, students had to start walking at 5am in the morning. (The farthest community was located three hours away.) “With a hand drawn map we walked on narrow trails through what you could call the forest to visit people house by house,” said third semester Nursing student Beto David Mamani.

A UAC-CP Nursing student talks to a local family about proper waste management.

At each household, students gathered information for the public health survey, looked for people with potential signs of tuberculosis and leishmaniasis, took samples of people with obvious symptoms of the diseases, and provided educational talks to promote healthy lifestyles, including ways to prevent and treat tuberculosis and lesihmaniasis.  “Our job is to not only diagnose people, but to educate them and advise them,” Beto said. The students are often the only medical professionals for miles around.

In addition to identifying cases of tuberculosis and leishmaniasis and helping people get the proper treatment, Nursing students also attended to special medical emergencies. “We’ve seen some pretty bad things,” Beto said recalling one particular situation in which students treated a little girl suffering from a dog bite on her face. “The family hadn’t taken the girl to the hospital, so we treated her. We walked to their home three mornings in a row to help the girl’s parents clean the wound and make sure it wasn’t infected,” Beto said. Grateful for their help, the family “paid” Beto and his classmate with bags of homegrown fruit.

Students told me that they were well received by community members. “It was really cool,” said Nursing student Roger Tapia. “We would stay and converse with community members for a long while. Often they would invite us to eat breakfast with them.” Beto agreed. “It has been a beautiful experience to work with the community members.”

The next steps for the project include expanding the active search and public health survey to include other communities within the Municipality of Coroico. Project coordinator Angelica Quisbert said she also wants students to stat processing the samples, rather than sending them to the Coroico Hospital for diagnosis. In order to do that, the College needs a better laboratory with more sophisticated equipment. “I want our students to leave [the UAC-CP] with the experience of working in a lab and processing samples.” If UAC-CP students will be working in understaffed rural clinics some day, they need to have multiple skill sets.  Currently, the only obstacles to growing the program are financial limitations.

Roger said he is grateful to everyone who has made a financial contribution to make this project a reality.  "There are many people in my country who need health care assistance" he said, "and that’s why I’m proud to be part of a project that is making a real difference for people. If we all just give a little, together we can make a big difference. In just five months we are already seeing positive results of our work. Thanks to this project, we are helping to prevent disease and, in some cases, death.”