Almost the whole Mashavu team as well as the rest of the HESE team arrived at the CYEC (The Nyeri Children and Youth Empowerment Center) this morning to get acquainted with one of Mashavu’s key partners. Since it has been relatively rainy for the past several weeks in Kenya, the road to the CYEC was rather muddy, which most of us were not accustomed to. We had matope kiatu or muddy shoes in Kiswahili, as some of the CYEC members were eager to teach us how to say. Once we arrived, we were split up into three groups and lead around the CYEC by older CYEC members. We were told how the CYEC worked, where the kids slept, what they did, and other areas of interest around the center. Soon after the tour the bioengineering students , the tech team, and the medical students left and returned to our base camp, The Ivory Hotel.
Back at the Ivory Hotel, all of the bioengineers had a successful first full day in Nyeri fixing, calibrating, and testing each of our devices. Once doing as much as possible to prepare the biomedical instruments, the bioengineering team planned out the order of the devices that will be used on the patients in the kiosks. One of the main concerns was when the blood pressure cuff and pulse-oximeter will be used in the line-up. Since the patients’ heart rates could possibly be elevated right when they enter the kiosk, the values retrieved from these instruments could be skewed. Therefore, they will be used last. Tomorrow, the team will teach people from CYEC how to use devices, as well as begin setting up the kiosk for Wednesday.
The tech team spent the rest of the day working on progressing the Mashavu App. and what was not needed for the current summer pilot. The medical team each worked on their research projects of vision care, community health workers, and community health care. The vision team tested a few HESE members in vision tests for their research project. The Con-Ops team split up into two groups after the CYEC tour shadowing Andrea and Jeff. Dan shadowed Jeff where they traveled to Gatitu to make arrangements with the sub chief and other officials in order for the bioengineering students to set up their test kiosks. They then made arrangements for the medical students to be able to do their research projects in the surrounding areas. These meetings for the medical students happened in Nyeri town as well as the Ivory Hotel.
The second Con-Ops group, Matt, was with the education team most of the day after the CYEC tour. Both Matt and the education team met the Mashavu nurse John, as well as two potential Mashavu Kiosk Operators (MKO’s), Anne and Jane. They observed John’s first day of instructing Anne and Jane to become future MKO’s. After the training observation, Matt, Andrea, and the education team went into Nyeri town for lunch. Matt, Andrea and a member of the education team, Meryn, met with John and two current MKO’s. John met the MKO’s because they have been having trouble getting costumers coming to their kiosks and getting them to choose consultations over the know- your- numbers service.
While the rest of the Mashavu team was at the CYEC getting a tour, Kate and Rachel traveled to Karatina via matatu to check out the current kiosk operating there. They also met with the municipal town council to gain permission to operate Mashavu business in the streets of Karatina.
The bastketball court at the CYEC.
The road leading up to the entrance of the main complex of the CYEC from the shamba (or their garden out back).
Mashavu 2012 