Written by Isaac Olega
What a beautiful morning in Moyo as the team sets off by 9am for their last busy day in the mountains of Otce in Moyo. The team visited two locations of Aya Health Center III and Agugwe Community. Driving through these bumpy marram roads makes it fun as you climb up the mountains to access Aya Health Center III, one of the remotest Health Centers in the country.
At Aya Health Center III the team carried out number of activities ranging from; Training the health workers, support staff, Ambulance Management committee and the members of Village Health Committee on Infection Prevention. This knowledge boost was so important to the community at large as there is always outbreak of different kinds of infectious diseases in the area, so this training prepared the all in the front line to be alert. Likewise, the team through its health experts aboard Dr. Jeff Smith and Nurse Ashleigh Gerhardt contacted several procedures with over 50 expectant mothers, these procedures include among others Fetal monitoring, Kick counting, checking the blood pressure etc. The most interesting in these exercises was the mothers were able to hear the heartbeat of the child directly something they never experienced before, and you will clearly see the joy of the mother in them. All 50 mothers were handed brand new baby bags packed with all the necessary items required to receive their newborns. For them, the day of joy and celebrations as most them would not keep in their excitement about the baby bags. While at the health center, as the team of health experts handle the mothers, there was another team member set to carry on the Namene Solar light survey assessments with the general community members of Aya parish who received the lights in June 2023. Pipeline Worldwide was donated over a thousand solar lamps by Namene and Pipeline Worldwide distributed these lights to seven villages around Moyo in June 2023. Aya and Eremi parishes were one of the parishes in which most of the lights were distributed in their villages. The beautiful part of this assessment was the experience sharing from the community members; the community gave whole heartedly their experience regarding the lights, these experiences blow one’s head as you see them express this with joy and love as they used these lights for their kids to read books at night, used it for house cores, farming, walking in night, the health workers used these lights to treat their patients at night. The community noted the following positive impacts brought in by the Namene Lights; improved performance in the schools, reduced snake attacks at night, improved service access and delivery, they only prayed if these could cover all the communities to benefit for these lights.
Agugwe community was our second destination of the day and last one to visit in Moyo by the team. We arrived by half past mid-day and head straight to check the water system Pipeline Worldwide donated two years ago to Agugwe community.
This is the first time in the life of the people in Agugwe to received safe drinking waters. Being on top of the mountain many interventions to drill water in Agugwe has always proved to be a great challenge. In 2021 Pipeline worldwide made a study on the existing water sources down the hills and decided to motorized the pumping up to the community of Agugwe 1.5km up hills. As of now there are two fetching points installed with 5000L water tanks each for the Community and the only Primary school. The community and with her leaders cannot forget this historic development brought by Pipeline Worldwide, which has already started producing great positive impacts in the community; school kids no longer travel more 3km to fetch water rather concentrate to read, Mother have enough time for farming other than travelling long distances to look for water these has all increased the productivity of the people since their health improved through safe water supplied.
Our second major activity at Agugwe was meeting with the group of young girls who called themselves, YOUNG GIRLS ASSOCIATIONS (YGA) This group of 25girls came together one year to start to make Liquid soap, and Bar soap and sell it to generate for them some income. They made an appeal to Pipeline worldwide in June 2023 for Pipeline to support them with some of the equipment’s, chemicals for making both Liquid and bar soaps, so we made a donation to that regard and interact with them on how they can multiply this and have better saving culture, with proper book-keepings.
Our last activity at Agugwe was the Solar light survey assessments like in Aya and other places the community expressed a lot graduated for the lights and the lights have greatly changed their lives and it will continue to do so. This survey was general a success with a lot of sharing’s from the community, this will be compiled and send to the manufacture Namene for further considerations. The community was too excited for seeing the new solar phone chargers, being in remote area with no access to Electricity they are seeing this as big relief if once donated.
Whole of these events at Aya and Agugwe was crowned with beautiful appreciation gifts from the community. Aya community gifted the team with pure Honey, to them the honey symbolizes their sweet relations with Pipeliners and the Agugwe community gifted the team with Cock to them Pipeline worldwide is one of them, because the Ma’di tribe uses the cock as the emblem.
Our beautiful day ended in at the hotel meeting with Bernard’s and the rest of the team at dinner. This was so beautiful. It was like our Pipeline end of year party or Christmas together. Seeing our kids interact with the team was so amazing, I can’t thank enough the team for this meeting, our kids learnt a lot in that shortest meeting of just an hour. It was really beautiful Jamie and Apollo… the kids loved it, thank you!
Truly one can’t under-estimate the little you give someone until you wait to hear from them, it will blow you mind and a heart because, these could be something that brings huge change in the person’s life. I always believed it’s not the little we gave that changes people’s lives but all of us coming together to do these little things that changes the life of others. Thank you to our PIPELINER’s for been committed to being the conduit of Change.
