Handicrafts and Appropriate Technology

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Training Nurses for Bush Hospitals, Sustaining Ecological, Economical and Socio-Cultural Components in Rural Communities

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By Ignatius Nji

Nji Marlis Bartkiewitz-Schmid (Nurse Trainer) Carrying out training at Alahkie

A mass campaign to educate local communities on how to live better with what they have on the ground as local materials is ongoing with the training of nurses for bush hospitals in the North West Region of Cameroon. This sensitization campaign is championed by the Center for Appropriate Technology (CAT) in collaboration with the Royal Rehabilitation and Reformation Center at Alahkie/Mankon with experts in traditional medicine. The nurses were trained by Marlis Bartkiewitz-Schmid from the Senior Expert Society (SES) in Bonn - Germany, in the use of traditional medicine (Indigenous) and methods of providing health care to patients in rural areas. The volunteer carried out study on how the traditional birth attendants go about assisting pregnant women during delivery.


Given that there is a Bush Hospital in Alahkie with a pharmacy stocked with traditional medicine, Marlis trained the 15 lady nurses on improved methods of traditional birth attendant. They were also trained on improved methods of administering first aid by use of traditional medicine. By training staff for bush hospitals, Marlis subscribes to the global objective to ensure that the future lies in rural areas. This program as coordinated by another volunteer, Prof PINTSCH (SES) from the Society for Promotion of Appropriate Technology and Housing (SPATH) and the German Society for the Promotion of Culture DGFK, is aimed at enabling the rural people to have access to basic health care facilities without living their communities. Technology as defined on page 22 in the book titled “Traditional Culture and Future Development” is considered appropriate only when it is able to employ on-site resources optimally and in an environmentally friendly manner, when it also suits peoples’ ecological, economic and socio-cultural circumstances.

According to Prof PINTSCH, solutions for local problems can not be imported from abroad given that the local reality is different from one community to the other. People in rural areas do not need so much sophistication to enjoy livelihood. People are to adopt community need base education which more practical and gradually moving away from the so much theory on Western concepts. He holds strongly that navigation system is controlling the human mind. Most educated people are conditioned to live like in Europe while back here in Africa which impossible. This concept of sensitizing people on how to live better with very little means is to enable the rural poor to live comfortable and happy lives just the urban rich with out causing any environmental hazard. 

Sensitization in Environment Protection is far more small solutions which are important for rural areas. In line with protecting the environment and ensure constant supply of medicinal plants, Traditional Rulers under the canopy of Cameroon Traditional Rulers Against Climate Change (CAMTRACC) embarked on tree planting campaign that began in Bambui and would span to other Fondoms given that the project shall run for three years. The Project to plant one million trees is funded by the Pan African Parliamentarian Network on Climate Change Headed by Hon. Awudu Mbaya Cyprian Mp for Nkambe Central. The exercise commenced on May 8 2015 with the planting trees that are medicinal and some fruit trees around springs.

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posted by S A J Shirazi @ 9:59 AM,

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