Rural health clinic reaches those in need

Kpawa is a rural community in northern Togo. It’s a four-hour ride from Lome, the capital, and the road is dotted with potholes. It would be hard to imagine a drive like this in an emergency situation, but traveling on rough roads to distant hospitals is exactly what residents had to do on any given day, for any given emergency.

That was, until June 17, 2010.

On that day, the Kpawa health clinic officially opened, ready to serve the 1,500-plus members of the community, over half of whom are children.

Now, pregnant women won’t have to walk 6 miles to the nearest hospital for prenatal care. Mothers won’t have to brave the rainy season to have their babies treated for malaria. Nearby school children can get life-saving immunizations and not miss a single lesson. Toddlers can receive crucial snake-bite serum in minutes, not hours or days.

The clinic has been a work-in-progress for area-residents for some 10 years. Together, they contributed time, materials and money, not to mention their hopes and dreams. But construction prices escalated faster than community volunteers could work, and after a decade, they had four concrete walls, but little else.

Even as resources ran out, their hopes and dreams didn’t. Members of the community contacted Plan for help to get their clinic finished. When Plan came out to evaluate, they knew it would be a wise investment, based on the amount of people they could reach and since much of the construction was already done. Plan staff in the United States also got involved, and voted to make completing the health center their annual project to support with donations through payroll deductions. Plan staff donated $5,000 to help make this project a reality.

Community members in Kpawa provided sand, water, gravel, and manual labor, while Plan assisted with logistics, materials and skilled labor.

Now, the community has a modern health clinic with latrines, and accompanying dorms for staff. It’s even equipped with solar panels to help keep costs down.

The opening inauguration was day of celebration for everyone, as community leaders, teachers, students, the Togolese Minister of Community Development and Plan staff joined with the residents of Kpawa to commemorate this event that was ten-years in the making.

And, for one member of the community, it wasn’t a minute too soon. Right after the ceremony, a pregnant woman gave birth to the first child born in a local, professional medical environment. One that Kpawa can call their own.