Report 2 13-03-2007

We visited 2 HIV /AIDS clinics (one of them just for children), and a school. It’s hard to see so many people sick and so many children that you know will have no future.

Our purpose for these visits was to try and make an assessment of what are acceptable levels of construction, and what we can hope to achieve.

The first place we visited was the Baphelong clinic, part of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital it’s specialized in the treatment of children. It has only one Paediatrician to take care of all the cases that come here from all the country. (Just as a remainder 31% of the population infected!). This building was inaugurated by Bill Clinton in 2005, it was a “system building”, fibber glass walls on a timber frame, that was brought here and reassembled from another site, possibly a hospital. The building and the adjacent wards for other diseases are decorated with drawings for the children! We also learnt here about the necessity of protection bars and opposite doors in the counselling rooms in order to avoid unnecessary contact and spread of diseases. There is no isolation but the shade of the adjacent trees and buildings kept it quite cool, however in the winter the doctors said it gets very cold and that they have to rely on electrical heaters.

They also expressed their wish for having part of the parking fenced off as a protected playground for the children.

Visit number 2 was to the Mabote clinic. This clinic is not only used for HIV/AIDS treatment but it’s one of it’s main occupations. An extension has been made to it in 1995, using a Chinese contractor with Worldbank funding, and both the original and the extension are of good workmanship and detail. Canopies, seating and open frame trusses in the inside show the care that was put into this project.

Despite these qualities the medical staff told us that it is still too small and that they could really do with and extra block exclusively for the HIV/AIDS treatments.

The School was however the best visit of the day. Having been lucky to see the children sing and dance, we also saw a building that despite not having electricity is a well achieved building and the children and staff seemed happy with it.

It was built with Japanese funds but with a local builder. There are 3 teaching blocks and 3 toilet blocks. The part dedicated to the secondary school is on 2 levels and the rest on 1.

The Head Teacher said that they might need to expand soon due to the increase of the number of children wanting to come to the school.

We went to the bank to speak about the funds for the building and discovered that there is still some left from the original budget and that they are willing to contribute with some more. They are probably underestimating but we’ve organized to meet again with them to show them our findings and proposal.

Final meeting of the day was with TED-Biogas they are funding part of the installation of a septic tank/methane collection system that will both collect and treat the effluents and provide water for irrigation and enough gas for cooking part of the meals. This meeting was very important for it made evident that we cannot use the septic tanks for building the embankments and retain the wall. It also showed the importance of coordination, in this case the lack of it, and we have decided to meet again, so that we can help each other. If we had been called at an earlier stage a more integrated solution could have been achieved but now it’s important to get functionality of the scheme right and then worry about the rest.