Senegal project visit
Bonjour everyone!
I would like to share some thoughts from a recent trip to Senegal, where we went to support and learn from the project they are currently running using our platform. It has been invaluable for me to get this opportunity and to see the platform “in the wild”. It really gave me a huge motivational boost seeing all this work we’ve been doing from a completely different perspective.
Coming from a 9–5 schedule of constant development of the platform, all the time behind my Oslo based office desk, to being able to wake up at 5 A.M. and drive for a few hours with the sun rising to face the moon on a brilliant, dusty desert morning sky, at times being stuck behind a bunch of kids being pulled by donkeys and seeing monkeys crossing the road before eventually reaching the docks where a boat will take us another couple of hours out to a remote village, all to be able to talk to the great volunteers who will use this platform where it’s really needed. That is invaluable. It gives some context to what we are doing.
It’s a totally different thing to brainstorm and create a system one thinks people need, than to actually talk to those people and hear what they have to say. We were lucky enough to get to visit volunteers in two of the districts that are using the platform here in Senegal, in Kaolack and in Sokone, staying one night in the town of Kaolack and one night in the village Bétanti in the Sokone district. Despite some language barriers (I was only able to express how much I like the food, which most of the time indeed was really good) we got a lot of great feedback from managers, supervisors and data collectors, mostly thanks to our great translators. In addition to this we also got to know a bit of the local community of Red Cross volunteers in Kaolack, as they were doing a first aid training in the backyard while we were there. It was a lively lunch!
I’m humbled by the kindness and hospitality we’ve been shown here, from Senegalese and Belgian Red Cross as well as from the Senegalese people in the communities we have visited. And I am now truly convinced that, even though we have identified challenges and improvements to be made, we are on the right track to create a great system that will help communities get access to health services, and in doing that, saving lives!
As a final note I would like to express my gratitude for this opportunity and hope that we’ll manage to continue the close contact with the communities, not only in Senegal, but in the whole wide world, so that we’ll be able to build a satisfactory system for all involved. I will certainly do my best!
