COMMUNITY HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION THROUGH SPORT IN MANDJOU, CAMEROON
Red Deporte health program in Cameroon takes place in the Eastern Region, with a high presence of refugee population. During the second semester of 2019, special work was done in the Mandjou area, which has 20,000 inhabitants, predominantly Muslim, with very few financial resources and a life expectancy of around 50 years.
The population is exposed to high risk of diseases, such as Malaria, Diarrhea (typhoid, amebiasis, yeast), hepatitis, skin infections or HIV-AIDS. The health work of Red Deporte throughout this period has taken place next to the public clinic «Notre Maison de Santé de Mandjou».
Most of the patients are pregnant women and children. HIV is still a disease with high mortality, due to the cultural reluctance of the population to carry out the tests and take the treatment, despite the fact that the Cameroonian government does free tests and provides free treatment to those infected, in addition to follow-up therapeutic of the latter. A high volume of health care has been devoted to population vaccination, prenatal consultation and health education; since the deficient attention is due more to the lack of population compliance, than to the lack of resources of the health centre.
The work of Ignacio Sanz as an internist doctor has consisted of passing consultation on the aforementioned pathologies and carrying out specific training in optimization of clinical tests, on the procedures followed at the centre associated with Red Deporte.
Regarding educational activities, a program of football activities for health and environmental education has been promoted in the environment of schools, essentially primary education, in Mandjou and Bertoua. Special attention has been paid to those related to environmental care, and topics such as health, prevention of infectious diseases, reforestation, recycling, waste treatment or climate change have been addressed. In the photograph we see a mural, created by the students of the educational centre through our environmental education workshops.
