Charla Preparation for Global Medical/Dental Brigades in Panamá

1. Charla Preparation for Global Medical/Dental Brigades in Panamá

2. p. 1 p. 2 p. 3 p. 4 p. 5 p. 5 p. 6 p. 7-8 p. 9 p. 10-12 p. 13 p. 14 p. 15 p. 16 • Title Page • Packet Outline • Introduction • Charla Instructions • Charla Topics • Oral Hygiene • Hand Washing • Water • Exercise • Nutrition • Sexual Health • Charla Tips • What to Bring • Conclusion Charla Packet Outline

3. Introduction What is a charla? Many student volunteers ask what is the sustainable aspect within Global Medical/Dental Brigades. This component is clearly embodied in what Global Brigades calls “charlas,” or “chats” in English. These educational discussions are the brigade component that ensures that community members have the knowledge to live healthier lifestyles. During the brigade, there will be two simultaneous charlas: the adult and children charlas.Both presentations will be carried out in separate locations within the medical/dental clinic. Community members attend the charla after they see the doctor and/or dentist, but before they receive their medications from the pharmacy.

4. Charla Instructions Each university is required to develop interactive and informative lesson plans (charlas) to present to the members of the rural communities in which we serve. Most importantly you will have the assistance of a translator and/or community volunteer. Be sure to have copies of the English and Spanish packets. Your group will design the charla and your members will rotate presenting throughout the education days. The charla should be a discussion, not a lecture. Be sure to make your charla interactive! This packet is resource to help you prepare for your charla before arriving in country. It is not a required part of your preparation, but it is a highly recommended guide when deciding how to present your information to communities. It would also be a good idea to work on creating some educational pamphlets around the health issues to distribute to family households. It’s good to be creative. Some groups have done skits, made visual aids, printed out handouts, and much more to guide the workshop.

5. Charla Topics: Oral Hygiene Impact: Oral hygiene is important for many reasons in addition to the aesthetic value of having a healthy and complete smile. • Recommendations • Brush your teeth three times per day, or after each meal. • Floss your teeth daily. Before brushing is best, but after you brush is beneficial too! • Visit a dentist twice per year when possible. If that’s not possible, just visit the dentist as often as possible. • Why is this important? • Oral health leads to pretty and complete smiles. Having healthy teeth prevents toothaches and keeps your teeth strong to eat a healthy diet. • Poor oral hygiene has a lot of negative effects. • Digestive problems: Digestion begins in the mouth. If you’re teeth aren’t healthy the digestion process can be damaged leading to intestinal disorders and pain. • Oral and facial pain: Teeth that are not regularly cleaned form cavities. Cavities can become infected and start to rot the rest of the tooth. Gums can become infected as well. This is very painful. • Often times rotted teeth must be removed which is also painful and takes away from your pretty smile!

6. Charla Topics: Hand Washing Impact: Keeping your hands clean is an easy and effective way to reduce sickness in your family and community. • Germs (microorganisms that spread disease) are impossible to see, but they are found in many places such as our hands, doorknobs, animals, etc. • Germs cause sickness such as colds, the flu but also more serious disease like meningitis, hepatitis A and most types of infectious diarrhea. • Washing your hands regularly can prevent the spread of these diseases to keep you and your family and friends healthy! • Washing hands also reduces to risk of fungal skin infections which are very common in our communities. • Washing hands prevents illness which reduces trips to the clinic, saving both time and money! • Recommendations • Wash your hands throughout the day • Before cooking and eating meals • After using the bathroom • After sneezing, coughing, or blowing your nose • After changing diapers • After touching animals, dirt, or plants • Before and after spending time with a sick person • How do we properly wash our hands? • Use soap and water • Wash your hands for at least 20 seconds (singing happy birthday is a good timing system) • Scrub between all your fingers, under your fingernails on your wrists as well

7. Charla Topics: Water Impact: Staying hydrated is essential to good health. Our bodies need water to: • Give us energy • Keep us focused and alert • Maintain the right temperature • Reduce the risk of skin infection by keeping skin strong • Process waste • Keep our joints healthy • Reduce the risk of urinary tract infections • Keep our muscles hydrated so we do not get sore as easily • Reduce headaches caused by dehydration • Reduce pressure on our hearts • How do we know when we’re hydrated? • Thirst • Little or no urine • Dark urine • Dry mouth • Fatigue • Headaches • Dizziness • Confusion • Lightheadedness • Recommendations: • Drink 8 glasses of clean water per day. Drink water throughout the day and particularly: • After exercise or physical labor • After walking or being in extreme heat • When eating meals • Community members often consume soda, sports drinks, or juice instead of water. • These drinks do not have the same hydration benefits as water • Caffeinated drinks can make us more dehydrated! • Sports drinks can be hydrating, but contain a lot of sugar. Limit their consumption to periods of intense exercise!

8. Charla Topics: Water • As you can see, drinking water is very important to good health. However, this water MUST be clean. Consuming contaminated water can have many negative health effects. • Water from rivers, lakes, and even faucets needs to be purified before consumption. How can we ensure that this water is clean before consuming it? • Boil it! Boiling water for just one minute purifies it for consumption. • Chlorinate it! The chart below shows the correct proportions of water and chlorine. • After water has been purified, it can become contaminated again. The following strategies can prevent re-contamination: • Store the water in a clean, sealed container. If bugs, dirty hands, or anything else are in the water, it can become re-contaminated. • It’s okay to reuse old soda or sports drinks bottles if you clean them first! • Use clean utensils or pour the water to drink it. If families use dirty cups or ladles to serve the water, the water will no longer be safe to drink. Pouring water into a clean cup is the best strategy! • If water does become contaminated again, boil it!

9. Charla Topics: Exercise • Impact: Becoming and staying physically active keeps people healthy in multiple ways. • People who are physically active have a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, hypertension, colon cancer, breast cancer, and obesity. • Physical activity also improves mental health and reduces the risk of depression. • Recommendations • Children should be exercising at least 1 hour per day • This time can be split up between playing sports, walking to school, and other forms of exercise • Adults should exercise at least 3 hours per week • This time should be divided between aerobics and strength training • Make physical exercise fun! • Find activities that you enjoy, so exercise does not feel like a chore • Play sport with friends • Try a new form of exercise such as dance • Make physical activity a part of your everyday life • Go for walks with friends instead of staying seated • Walk instead of taking a vehicle to stores or friends’ houses • Limit your time watching TV and on the computer – choose more active pastimes

10. Charla Topics: Nutrition Impact: Nutrition can be a challenging topic to discuss in our communities. Of course we want to encourage community members to eat more fruits and vegetables, to avoid empty-calorie snacks like chips, and to seek out lean proteins. However, accessibility and culture make a huge impact in what people eat, and changes can be slow. • Traditionally, most of our communities consume predominately: • Chicken • Rice • Yucca • Beans • Plantains • Panamanian tortillas • Tropical fruits • Recently, small shops, have opened in many communities. These shops generally sell: • Soda • Candy • Cookies • Chips • Bottled Water • Sports Drinks It can be very difficult to find healthy snacks in these communities. If the shops do sell healthy items, they are often considerably more expensive than the unhealthy snacks.

11. Charla Topics: Nutrition • Recommendations: • Encourage the community members to eat a variety of foods • Avoid eating too many processed foods from the local shops. • Instead choose healthier options such as juice or water instead of soda, whole wheat crackers instead of cookies or chips. • Eat fruit as snacks! Pineapple, papaya, and mango make great snacks. • Maintain traditional eating habits. Chicken, rice and beans are good sources of energy. Lentils and beans are good choices as well. • Eating well gives us more energy for school, work, and fun activities. • Encourage the reduction of salt and sugar intake • Very salty foods, such as chips and processed snacks, and very sugary foods, such as soda and candy, can contribute to long-term health problems. • Heart disease • Obesity • Type II Diabetes • Eating well reduces disease and therefore saves time and money spent on clinic visits and keeps us feeling energized and healthy.

12. Charla Topics: Nutrition • Maternal/Infant Nutrition • Breast milk is absolutely vital for the proper growth and development of infants. Especially during the first six months of life, infants should consume exclusively breast milk. • After the first six months infants can begin to eat other soft foods, but they should continue to consume breast milk until they are at least two years old. • Infant nutrition is extremely important; it influences brain development and lifelong health. Changing the Way We Look at Food It’s important for parents to know that their eating habits will have an enormous impact on the habits their children develop. • Children will eat what parents make. If parents provide healthy meals, children will develop healthy habits. • Food does not represent love or care. There are many ways to express love to children that don’t involve food, especially unhealthy snacks such as candy. Candy is fine to be consumed rarely, but it shouldn’t be a daily reward for good behavior. • Instead use extra play time or a fun game as the reward. • It’s good for parents to encourage their children to try new foods. This will give them a more diverse diet and more opportunities to be healthy.

13. Charla Topics: Sexual Health Impact: Sexual health is a sensitive topic around the world, and it is especially hard to discuss in our rural communities. However, this is still an important topic for all volunteers to be familiar with before arriving in country! • Recommendations: • Explain how sexual transmitted infections are spread. • STIs are spread through contact of bodily fluids (blood, sexual fluids) • Sexual Contact • Needle Sharing • Childbirth • STIs are not spread through other physical contact such as hand-holding, kissing, hugging, sharing food or drink, etc. • Focus on prevention. The most common sexual transmitted infections in our communities are: • Gonorrhea • Chlamydia • Syphilis • Chancroid • Herpes • If a community member does contract a sexually transmitted infection, it is important that they have the knowledge to recognize it and seek treatment. Some early signs of these infections are: • Abnormal secretions from vagina/penis • Abnormal pain in lower abdomen (women) • Warts or ulcers in the genital area • Painful or difficulty urinating • Foul odor from the genital area • Burning or itching in the genital area • Prevention Strategies: • Practice safe sex! This helps prevent STIs, but also helps with family planning and avoiding unwanted pregnancies. • Use condoms. Be sure to explain or demonstrate how to properly use a condom, and to keep in mind that anyone using a condom should be checking the expiration date first. • Have trustworthy partners. • If you are in a monogamous relationship, or have only a few partners, the risk of contracting a disease is much lower than if you have sexual contact with many different people. • Get tested for STIs! Especially if you are planning to become pregnant or are already pregnant. Women can pass STIs to their unborn child during pregnancy, childbirth, and breast feeding.

14. Tips Charla means chat, and that’s what it should be in our clinics. Charlas are most effective when they are discussion-based, not just lectures. Don’t just focus on how to be healthy, focus on why it’s important! For example, don’t just explain how to purify water; instead, focus on why we want to avoid drinking contaminated water. Discuss the risks associated with consuming contaminated water (ex., parasites and diarrhea) and long-term effects (ex., missing school or work, long and expensive trips to the health clinic). • Make the charla a conversation • Sit among the community members. Avoid the mentality that volunteers are teaching and that community members are learning; both groups can learn from each other! • Ask questions! Don’t forget that the community members know more about their daily life and health challenges than you do. • Establish a clear message • Introduce today’s topic to the group • Utilize key words (ex., the words of today are bacteria, fungi, and viruses) • Keep the lessons demonstrative, motivational, and high energy • Avoid long pauses • Remember that kids learn by playing • Use simplistic language and lots of visuals! (ex., diagrams and charts) • You will have the assistance of a translator and/or a community member. Be sure to bring copies of the English and Spanish packets.

15. What to Bring • Visuals and hygiene packs make charlas much more successful and meaningful long term. If students and adults have something to take home with them after the brigade (educational pamphlets, hygiene packs, stickers, etc.) they will be continuously reminded of what they learned. • Bring Visuals! • To make the charla more interactive, bring posters, markers, crayons, etc. • Bring stickers to reward students who give the correct answer, or participate in the charla. • Bring Hygiene Packs • Volunteers often bring baggies of basic hygiene supplies for community members to take home. These generally include: • Shampoo/Conditioner • Soap • Toothpaste/Toothbrushes • Dental Floss • Chapter leaders are often very busy preparing for the brigade. We recommend having a team of volunteers (not necessarily the main chapter leaders) take on the task of hygiene packs. This is a great opportunity for volunteers to get more involved before the brigade!

16. Conclusion This concludes our expansive Global Medical/Dental Brigades charla preparation packet. We hope that this has helped you get ready to come to Panama! We cannot wait to see you upon your arrival! Please feel free to contact us with any questions that you may have using the contact information below. Stay Connected: Main Website: www.globalbrigades.org Volunteer Resource Site: brigaders.wikidot.com/ Blog: www.globalbrigades.org/blog YouTube: www.youtube.com/user/BrigadeVideos Contact your Global Brigades Panamá staff • For information about Medical, Dental, and Public Health brigades in Panamá: healthprogramspanama@globalbrigades.org