Our partners in Cochabamba, Bolivia work with sexual abuse survivors to help with pediatric community health topics. Specifically, I plan on contributing to projects and work shops on early childhood development through a trauma- informed and autonomous lens. This will help rural community health workers be able to identify early delayed milestones and identify and begin treatment for common early childhood diseases. I also plan on working with families to help implement and augment early childhood literacy by expanding the program we understand as “Reach Out and Read” here in the US to our partners in Bolivia.
The children and their families of the community in Chilimarca will benefit from our partnership as they will have consistent access to community workers that have greater knowledge on early childhood concepts to benefit them. This population is especially important as they are a rural community away about 40 minutes from the nearest municipality, Cochabamba.
I anticipate that the impact will be in the care of young children. I hope that community workers being able to identify common health concerns and developmental milestones will be able to reduce morbidity and aid in escalating care for early intervention.
I went to Bolivia and was able to work with local partners to identify community health measures to improve pediatric health and wellness as well as support families with newborns. I was able to partner with local nurses, psychologists, doctors, and teachers to provide care in the form of everything from well child checks to lessons on normal and abnormal childhood development.
