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Committed to Giving an Entire Community Access to Health Care

Do you think it is still possible to bring renewed hope to an entire region? This is exactly what the five members of the PR…CI 2007 project, all engineering students at the …cole de technologie supÈrieure (…TS), accomplished by providing the small community of Savalou in Benin with a medical clinic and ecological latrines.

The students, who began organizing the project in October 2006 in collaboration with the SYTO Benin organization and Father Maximin Dazogbo, were finally able to give concrete expression to their project from September to December 2007. Thanks to the new medical clinic, which has been described as an architectural gem by the local authorities, a large number of villagers no longer have to walk several kilometres to obtain health care services.

“The impact was enormous and highly beneficial: a decrease in fatigue among the villagers, rapid treatment, preventive action through vaccination campaigns, improved overall health and personal development, especially in children. I can but congratulate these students,” points out Paulette Aho, executive director of SYTO Benin.

The fully functional clinic has proven to be a true blessing in a place where the lack of access to health services has given rise to a number of sanitary problems and led to a high prevalence of infectious diseases (malaria, tuberculosis and Aids). “Leaving them with one of those famous “white elephants,” a project so poorly administered that it fades into oblivion, was out of the question. We therefore made the durability of the installations our main concern,” confided Gabriel Millaire, one of the project’s leaders.

In addition to choosing a concept adapted to the region’s specific needs, the group of students made sure that the clinic was equipped with medical supplies, medicine and furniture, while ensuring that the local staff acquired the necessary expertise thanks to training provided by QuÈbec health professionals. “Two nurses and an osteopath specializing in prenatal care spent three months in Savalou and we are still monitoring the clinic’s needs in this respect,” the spokesperson explains. The local authorities, for their part, were responsible for supplying the establishment with drinking water and electricity in order to ensure its smooth running.

As for the latrines, the group of students could not resign themselves to offering the region a health care facility without tackling the problem of human excreta disposal. Carried out in partnership with the CR…PA organization, the ecological latrines project enables human faeces and urine to be transformed into fertilizer for farmlands.

The repercussions of the project are more than salutary; they have changed the everyday lives of many villagers. The medical clinic not only gives the population access to low-cost health care, it is also a lever for economic development as it provides jobs for a number of people.

“When we see that the medical clinic is now open to the public and providing health care, we have a strong feeling of pride, which goes to show our efforts to ensure its durability were not in vain,” concludes Gabriel with enthusiasm.

Dispensaire au Bénin