Us and our guides

Week 2 in San Juan. Still no internet but we now have laptops. We have a new groupmate. We also identified the core problem we should be targetting.

I find the community work to be more toxic than anything I've ever encountered in college, including the thesis. My sleeping time has moved beyond 12 pm which sucks because I have to wake up at quarter to 6 (I'm the first to wake and prepare). More importantly, we are responsible not only to ourselves but also to the people of the community. These people have placed their trust in us. They trust that we'd be helping them improve their lives.

Of course, what they define as help is different from ours. They seem to think we are there to give people material stuff. No we aren't. We are trying to empower them (by modifying attitudes and giving them the necessary skills and knowledge) so they can get what they want. Oo, grassroots movement na ito. The biggest concern for me right now is that the people are resisting this idea. We are fortunate that we are working in a very participative barangay. The captain is supportive and the midwife is very bibo.

Another concern is that we seem to be working on a problem that is way beyond our capabilities: Hypertension. See as public health persons, we have to please two masters: the community's needs and the community's wants. Sometimes, these two don't agree. In our prioritization matrix, we identified a core problem of something we think they need, we could help solve and we think is feasible given the resources. Then we asked to community members. Aarrgh... why must our approach be participative?!

We agree that the problem needs attention but we vehemently disagree that is it feasible with current state of resources especially with the time span. Also the strategy we are planning to use has a very high chance of failing and largely depends on our ability to convince certain key leaders in the community. And the strategy's output will not be readily felt by the community if we act too slowly.

Fortunately, we know that last year a PH group implemented almost the same strategy and we can use their case to help us make our plan more feasible. Unfortunately, their program failed miserably. The skills weren't practiced and the system they set-up crashed due to non-participation.

*sigh

Hypertension... kung hindi ngayon, kailan? kung hindi kami, sino?


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The LFA is a good tool. The problem I find is that it demands that you already know the answer to everything before you start using it or you'll encounter a LOT of problems. It's fun and reliable though. Makes you think about everything.

I'm surprised though that med interns haven't heard of the LFA given that it is a vital tool employed by many community organizers.

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Which should we target? Mothers who cook the food? Or children who are essentially blank slates and could be molded to have a healthy lifestyle?