AMAD2015 Diaries 2

The grand and final day of AMAD finally arrived. It had rained in the early hours of the morning and
the road had turned muddy, so we couldn’t go with the bus. As we had an appointment with all the students of OACHS Odonoko at 9:00am we had to walk to the junction to look for alternatives. Fortunately, the bus from Lagos arrived with more volunteers from University of Lagos and Pan-Atlantic University. A good number of us forced ourselves into the bus while the rest were left to take commercial motorcycle.

We arrived at Odonoko an hour behind schedule and set out to divide the students into groups. We spoke to them on etiquette, hygiene and sex education. Vera Udoh encouraged the girls to develop their talents and also seek vocational opportunities in catering, arts, hair styling etc.

 

The health outreach took place simultaneously in the St. Josephs School. The outreach began with a health awareness talk aptly delivered by Mariam Akande on the need to eat healthy and balanced meals. Then all was set for the medical checks to begin. Some people helped to collect the patients’ data, while others assisted in calculating Body Mass Index (BMI). There were blood sugar and blood pressure tests.

 

 

 

The patient were then referred to see the Dr. Nancy Orjinta assisted by some medical students. Ezinne Onwuekwe, a pharmacist assisted by the pharmacy students, helped to dispense the available drugs to the patients. We had gotten a sizeable donation from community pharmacies in Lagos. We rounded up at about 3:30 pm.

 

 

We spent the rest of the day cooling off at the pool and with a movie afterwards.

8th of November – It is time to start our homewards journey and the morning was spent cleaning and packing. A few people went to buy ijebu garri  to take home. AMAD 2016 has officially come to an end. They were days of intense work and of deprivations of the comfort of life in the city. They were also days that the participants would always cherish. They learnt to serve. The words of one of them sums it up quite nicely, “one should do this once in a while; take off from the city life and come to serve in the village. I have learnt so much about myself and about living with others. These poor people who I thought had nothing to offer have taught me a lot and changed my perspective about a lot of things. This experience is worth a lot in gold”.

 

The End.