Fourteen Nursing students and faculty participated in the first international service learning trip at Sinclair Community College. They traveled to San Lucas Toliman, Guatemala where they built 11 masonry cookstoves for 11 Mayan families under the direction of Mayan masons. They also did presentations on burn care, dental hygiene and kitchen safety. Cecilia Bidigare, professor, Cynthia Schoonover, professor, Rhonda Koenig, professor, Kathy Petersen, professor, Marilyn Rodney, program coordinator of Service Learning; and students Jeanette Bullion, Daniel Carpenter, Tiffany Cotterman, Karriann Crowell, Brenda Eggleton, Elizabeth Jeffers, Sara Johnson, Erica Korns and Wanda Schnee took part in the trip.
On Black Friday while some people were making their way out to the big sales at malls and superstores, fourteen nursing faculty and students prepared to leave their familiar, convenient lives to help families in need more than 1,500 miles away.
The 10 day trip would not only prove to be gratifying, but a life lesson of the love that can be found from the comfort of strangers who live with far less than they could have ever dreamed of.
The main goal of the trip was to build 12 safer and more fuel efficient stoves and to do four requested service learning projects that included presentations on burn care, dental hygiene, menopause and kitchen safety. They also helped teach the families how to make homemade candles that could be made from the materials right outside their homes.They successfully built 11 stoves and completed all the presentations except for menopause due to events going on in the city.
For many of the students the culture awareness and friendship with the Mayans made them look at how they would treat their patients differently in the future.
“I really think the one thing that I brought back with me, hopefully as my profession as becoming a nurse, would be that I will look at my patient care for patients who are of another nationality or from another country, that transformation as far as respecting their culture when you’re treating them,” Eggleton said. “Previously in some of our questions that we do as nursing students the staff will ask us questions and we answer them in turn them, but if I was to go back and look at some of those particular questions about culture and how would you treat a patient from a different country. I think the first thing now I’m going to look at is respect.”
The trip was taken through the organization Transformational Journeys who Shoonover said did everything possible to make the trip educational and enlightening for everyone.
“Transformational journeys bent over backwards to provide us with health related topics as well as opportunities for nursing to be practiced,” Shoonover said. “They couldn’t have done anymore for us. It was wonderful.”
This was Bidigare and Rodney’s third time taking the trip, although never incorporated with service learning and they both felt that watching the student’s and other faculty’s experiences was the most rewarding.
“The first time you go you can’t believe the culture, poverty, traditions, climate, volcanoes, all of that; and then to see it again through their eyes and how excited they get about it and the compassion with our students,” Bidigare said. “That was the most outstanding thing to see for the first time.”
They were allowed to visit the clinics and hospitals near where they were staying and found it quite shocking what they knew and how well they worked with so little, according to Eggleton. Midwives in the town knew the four signs of danger, when to call the doctor and to clean everything as clean as possible; and they worked all hours of the day and night with no pay.
“They work so, so hard for these families,” Eggleton said. “I just have such respect for what they do.”
The trip also drove home how much we do have in our country and how much of it we take for granted.
“Seeing a development country and their health program was really eye opening. What they have available, really what they don’t have available,” Shoonover said. “A lot of their medications were expired but they were so happy to have anything available to them in their little brown box.”
Sinclair dental hygiene students Svettana Stump, Lorah Pitcock, Kristen Conkle, Ross Frank and Laura Reising helped research and organize the presentation for the trip.
Rodney hopes that this will be the first of many service learning international trips for the college and is thankful for everyone that helped make it possible. Bidigare said she admires the students for how much they sacrificed to go on this trip and couldn’t have asked for a better group to work with.
All of the faculty and students want to give a special thanks to the President’s office for making the trip possible and helping with some of the costs.
“I hope that our voice will make an impact on the student body and faculty,” Jeffers said. “As a result I hope Sinclair will offer more International Service Learning opportunities in the future”
International Stove Project
While there are several organizations that are involved with building stoves for families across the world, they all have one common goal – to reduce the cause of disease, burns and death from cooking over an open fire, that contributes to a better quality of life.
Some organizations involved are Guatemala Stove Project, HELPS International, and Stove Team International.
Most of the poor continue to cook over indoor fires located on the floors of unventilated homes, according to HELPS International’s website at www.helpsintl.org. These fires cause devastating burns, skin and eye problems.
Excessive smoke in homes results in respiratory problems that, according to the World Health Organization, are the leading cause of death in children under the age of five. Testing of carbon monoxide, a deadly toxin, found readings in the homes to be as much as twice the level considered dangerous.
High instances of facial and hand burns were due to children falling into these open fires when they were playing or learning to walk.
That inefficient burning of wood for three-stone fires required the women and children to gather huge amounts of wood daily, contributing to Guatemala’s deforestation at a level of 2% per year. The time lost to long treks to get the wood combined with the effect of carrying heavy loads had a detrimental health impact on women and their families.
These inefficient open fires also result in massive deforestation.
Information found at www.guatemalastoveproject.org, www.stoveteam.org and www.helpsintl.org.
About San Lucas Toliman
More than half of Guatemalans are descendants of indigenous Mayan peoples.
In 2002
San Lucas Toliman’s in town population was 12,000 and another 12,000 in surrounding villages
76% live in poverty and 33% in extreme poverty
57% are less than 20 years old but 3% are over 60 years old
Population growth is about 2.7% per year
89% are Kaqchikel Mayans
5000 feet above sea level on the southeastern shores of Lake Atitlan
Sits on the base of two volcanoes – Atitlan and Toliman
Economy of the town depends on coffee
There is also some fishing, a busy local market and other crops such as avocados, pears, maize, tomatoes and other vegetables.
The name Toliman is said to be derived from “Tul,” a plant like material which grows in the lake in the San Lucas area.
In 2001
47.8% of the population between 15 and 65 years old were illiterate
Six government and two private elementary schools
78% of children attend elementary school; though maybe for only a year or two
Four full time junior high schools and two full time high schools in San Lucas
Two part time junior high/high schools operating on the weekends
Information contributed by Transformational Journeys, www.tjourneys.org.