A day in the life of… A CBS delegate !
[Story originally shared in the CBS newsletter. Sign up to the newsletter here!]
We’re continuing with our series “A day in the life of…”, so you can get a glimpse as to what it looks like when working in the field, supporting CBS projects. This month we have an interview with Essokazim Tchedeli. Thanks Essokazim for participating in this interview!
Essokazim Tchedeli is an epidemiologist, with public health and health economics degrees. He is a CBS delegate working with the Belgian Red Cross supporting the Senegal Red Cross CBS project.
He is based in Dakar, Senegal. If you come to the CBS Codeathon 5.0 in Dakar, you’ll meet him!
We asked Essokazim what a day in the life of a CBS delegate looks like. This is what he told us!
“When I go to the field, it’s exciting, we encounter multiple actors on the ground, we talk with the volunteers who are very engaged in the work. We also encounter the people from the health system, for example the doctors who head the health centers, and the nurses at the health posts. They show a great interest in participating and engaging in Community Based Surveillance. The Senegal Red Cross is really engaged, so we’re looking forward to implementation.
I can tell you a bit about my last mission to Fatick and the isles region in Senegal, as an example of what fieldwork can look like. In this last mission, it was a long way to get to the villages we were visiting, but the roads in Senegal are paved for the most part. We need to cross some rivers, but there are no bridges in some places, so we cross in a type of boat that can take the cars. This can be a bit hard, as we stay 2–3 hours in the sun while crossing.
Otherwise, the landscape is beautiful, and we see the villages. In the isles region, there are a number of sea inlets, creating countless islands and islets. Some of these islands are inhabited and we go in a pirogue to talk to the communities there. In these villages the health facilities are very basic, a simple dispensary that may have a matron or birth attendant, but no nurse.
Even there, there are Red Cross volunteers and local Red Cross committees. We go to collect data, and talk to the volunteers. We tell them about the project and its challenges, we collect their expectations about it, and we discuss next steps. They are usually very interested. They are motivated by supporting their communities and by the knowledge they will acquire in the trainings.”
Thanks Essokazim for this picture of a day in the life of a CBS delegate in Senegal!
