Health
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A mission from the Association Echanges France Cap-Vert made up of health professionals, young people and a fireman is currently on the island of Boa Vista. The doctors in the delegation have been providing the population with checkups, while the fireman has administered courses for local fishermen in order to better prepare them for work on the seas.
The mission, whose two-week trip will end on Monday, is made up of 61 people, 22 of whom are physicians and 20 of whom are young people and teenagers. There is also a fire fighter who came to pass on his experience in emergency survival techniques to the islands fishermen and divers
, The Association Echanges France Cap-Vert, headquartered in Montpelier, in southern France, has promoted a number of exchanges with Cape Verde since 1990, having held programs on the islands of Maio, Santiago and Sal. According to its directors, beginning in 2005 they plan to come annually and extend the project to the other islands. , The group is not-for-profit, explains the associations president, Deleuze Cristine. We brought medicine, mainly for controlling diabetes, a thousand pairs of glasses for children with vision problems and school materials and clothes for the neediest children. , A novelty this year is the training program in Micro-Kinesitherapy, administered by five specialists to local doctors and therapists. Jean-Luc Ferlandin explains that with this technique only the hands are used, based on the belief that the body has the capacity to cure itself. The therapy consists of stimulating the body in order for this process to occur. , Three pharmacists also came with the delegation, representing Pharmaciens sans Frontiéres from the city of Nimes. Marie Jeanne Falanga is one of them, and explains that although it was not difficult to obtain the medicine, it was hard to manage to bring it to Cape Verde, as each passenger was allowed only 20 kilograms of luggage, and were talking in terms of tons of medicine, medical equipment, clothing, etc. , Its horribly expensive to bring all of this equipment, stresses Jean Luc Perrin, one of the four general clinicians in the group. Perrin is the only member of the delegation who has been in Cape Verde before in previous missions. His last one was 14 years ago. , Despite problems here and there, the visitors consider their experience in Cape Verde positive and stimulating. And, according to local elementary school teacher Filomena Andrade, nos amis français are loving their visit. , The group will return to France early Monday morning. On Sunday they will be on the island of Sal, where they will give a survival workshop to the divers and fisherman at the port of Palmeira. |
