Golf tournament 2012

It is now time to think about the 2012 golf tournament. Please visit our website for more details!




http://www.panamahealthproject.org/index.html

June 2011: Second visit to Colon!

In June 2011, I had the wonderful opportunity to visit Colon for the 2nd time. It was great to see familiar faces and many new ones too! This time my visit took place over 4 fantastic days of genuine sharing, laughter and friendship. I was accompanied by my husband Vincent as he wanted to see what volunteer work I am doing but also to meet Javier, the young boy we are sponsoring for school.

We were welcomed with hugs and smiles which made us feel at home right away. Our first visit was Javier's school where we met the teachers, principal, classmates and of course Javier who was impatiently waiting for us! It was great to see the sparkle in his shy eyes when he noticed us! Javier and I met 2 years ago during my first visit with Kelly and Marlynne. At that time, I had shared my desire to sponsor a child and Dina, one of the sister who leads MUCEC, the women and children center in Colon, had suggested I partner with Javier. She got to know me better and after a few days and though Javier and I would be a good match.

It was great to officially meet him in 2009 as we tried to communicate as best as we could with my limited knowledge of Spanish and his limited knowledge of English. It did not matter because he understood right away my desire to support him and I could easily see the effect it had on him and his grandmother.

This experience has been very enriching for all of us. For my husband and I, it gives us the opportunity to share our blessings and give support to a young person who lives in a challenging environment with family struggles. It inclined us to keep in touch with the community in Colon and travel there to discover a new part of the world, a different culture and human challenges outside of our own country. Knowing we can make a difference in someone life is very rewarding on a human level. We do not have children of our own so helping Javier is a wonderful experience.

Our second day in Colon was spent laughing! During my first visit in 2009 I was impressed by all the smiles I saw, despite the poverty and the many challenges the residents of Colon face everyday. In 2010, I trained to be a laughter yoga (LY) leader as I believe everyone has the capacity to laugh; it doesn't matter what living condition one is in. Since LY's mission is to promote peace and love around the world, I decided to conduct 2 sessions of laughter yoga at MUCEC. The first one was facilitated with the women and it was a huge success! Aldo, from Kelly & Marlynne's community, had translated the instructions in Spanish so I could conduct the session in the women's language. I felt that speaking the community's language was fostering a welcoming atmosphere of openness and indeed, we did laugh a lot and it was absolutely fantastic! Soon enough, the children were listening at the door and wanted to join us in this great moment!

I then facilitated a second session with the children and again, we shared many laughs and lots of love! This session was also wonderful and I believe it taught the children that we do care about them and witnessing my husband and I goofing around with them made them feel accepted. The rest of our short visit with them was wonderful and we always had a little hand to hold, a hug to give or receive and laughter to share. Every time we'd see each other we would repeat the LY mantra and laugh again.

On our last day, we had the wonderful opportunity to visit la Carcel, the men's prison in the city of Colon. The pastoral team, lead by Father John, took my husband and I with them for their weekly visit with the inmates. This team has encountered many challenges since the new prison director has been in place 3 months ago. We could feel the hurdles to get in the Padre Alan salon, where the pastoral team meets regularly. At this point, negotiations are moving slowly to improve the room where the weekly meetings take place with the inmates. The pastoral team is confident to be able to move ahead with renovation plans, although they face challenges. They believe in their work and the inmates do benefit from a community of faith and support.

During our visit, we sang songs and shared prayers with the inmates. After we introduced ourselves, I asked the men to share with us what the pastoral group means to them. At first, the men were uncomfortable to speak but after I told them in details what the Panama Health Project was doing for them, they started to open up. I realized we had to create this safe place for them to share their feelings and they understood quickly that the PHP team was happy to be there. I have to admit that in the end, I was quite impressed by the level of sharing they all showed. Gradually, many of them stood up to talk about their personal experience and the most common themes of their talk were: family, respect and faith. These men are fathers, sons, oncles, friends, husbands who, at some point, lost their path and need to find it back. For them, it is quite moving that people from Canada would travel to visit them and share their religious meeting with them. We learned a lot from them but also from other members of the pastoral team. I was deeply touched by this lady's story about her husband being murdered and her path to forgiveness.

My husband was also touched by these guys whom are mainly in our age group and whom do appear tough, but still, are sharing their deepest fears and feelings. We did share with them how grateful we were for this visit and we all hope that we will be able to visit again soon!

6th Annual PHP Golf Tournament, July 10-09

The 6th annual golf tournament for the Panama Health Project was held at the Club de Golf Belle Vue, in the town of Lery. I would like to present you the golfers who generously participated to this great fundraising event!

The Panama Health Project would like to take a moment to warmly Thank each of them for their great contribution! Their kind support will allow the PHP to continue providing help to those in need in Colon, Panama.

Medical Blitz in the prison

Panama Health Project

Hello to all of you. A bit odd to be writing now about our medical blitz in the prison on March 14th, but things really took off around that time with all the organizing and preparing for it, followed by its aftermath. Then with returning home, taking a breather for a few days before going back to work! Then of course, the passing of Fr Al, the inspiration behind all of this project. All this to say that, well, it's now May 3rd and I'm writing about a great medical blitz that took place in Nueva Esperanza Prison in Colon on March 14th, 2009. ..

What a great day it was!! First off I must offer my deepest gratitude to Natty and Maria, in Colon, who did a wonderful job of getting all the necessary paperwork done so that the medication we brought would enter the country without any problem. This, of course, is to accompany the professional and proper paperwork that Health Partners International of Canada gives us with the quality medications they provide for the people we serve. One cannot have enough paperwork to substantiate what we are doing and we sure appreciate all the support we get from Natty and Maria as we make our plans to ener the country with pharmaceutical goods. Natty and Maria are two dedicated parishioners at Miraculous Medal Church in Colon who have been the backbone of the prison ministry in Fr Al's absence over the past 2 years. Without them, the ministry would have surely dwindled and perhaps even died.

Upon arriving in Colon there was much sorting of the medications, researching and translating of information on medications that the Panamanian MD's would not be familiar with. We had identified these medications by revising our lists with a local medical doctor and pharmacist. Permissions from the prison director had had to be obtained long before the date of the blitz. Doctors and nurses had been lined up for the big day, and many prisoners that are part of the prison's pastoral team ( inmates that take catechism classes which Fr Al began 8 or 9 years ago) had registered the sick inmates over a period of time prior to that. The inmates that are part of the pastoral team are called "missionary prisoners", and I might add that they wear the name well.

Perhaps I should say at this time that there is a medical doctor who is present on the premises of the prison, 5 days per week. However, with the sheer number of sick inmates (out of a total of 1500), the task at hand is heavy for one person to handle; not to mention that whatever medications the inmates need, the inmates must pay for, which is difficult, if not impossible for them to do, since poverty is a common factor as to why the inmates find themselves in prison in the first place. People's waiting periods to see the doctor vary between weeks and interminable periods. Years ago we had a blitz in which prisoners were so happy they were crying when they finally saw the doctor who attended to them. One man said he had been waiting for 2 years in prison to see a doctor for his problem.

Three nurses from the community volunteered to help during our blitz, as did 2 medical doctors and 2 pharmacists. We had great support from the prison and community Pastoral Teams members. The guards were also cooperative (which isn't always a given), and the inmates were nothing but respectful and appreciative. We were able to see approximately 200 inmates between 10am and 5:30 pm. The medications we used were mostly from Health Partners International of Canada. If a prisoner had a prescription for a medication that we had not brought, it was bought and a brought a day or so later, after buying it locally with funds that we collected over the past year. People were truly grateful and it was a very humbling experience in so many ways. One man was extremely sick; so much so that he could barely make it out of his cell. Upon examining him, the doctor refused to give him any medication as he needed to be taken to the hospital immediately. He was septic, which means he had generalized infection of his blood. Without the medical blitz, the missionary prisoners feel he would have been overlooked as he was literally in the corner of his cell, too sick to make any kind of a fuss or speak up for himself. Without medical treatment, he would no doubt have died. In short, it was a wonderfully successful day. We're ecstatic!

Father Alan passed away

It is with extreme sadness that the Panama Health Project wants to inform you that Father Alan McLellan died on Monday April 13, 2009.
Kelly and Marlynne travelled to Philadelphia for Alan's funeral. I don't know much about him but it's irrelevant. I know enough to be inspired. For those who don't know, Alan was Kelly and Marlynne's family. Kelly has been doing work with him in Colon since 1988. I believe Alan was in Colon for about 40 years and has inspired Kelly to start the Panama Health Project.

He knew a lot of people (if not everyone!) and touched so many of them at church and at the prison where he was visiting inmates regularly.
It seems like everywhere he went, he had a positive impact on people.
When we were in Panama in March, Father Alan could not be with us as he was injured. But everywhere we went in Colon, people had a warm welcome for us, knowing we were coming to pursue some of the volunteer work Alan was doing. I never met Alan so it was quite impressive to constantly hear positive comments regarding this man.

I can only share a fraction of the good Alan brought to Colon. So many people would have something positive to say about him. At the prison, I heard an inmate say that meeting Father Alan was like seeing and feeling the inner light- la luz. I heard others say he helped them through very tough times with kind words and constant encouragement. It also appears he had a contagious laugh that would make anyone smile, even the grumpiest ones! His greatest gift is that he made people feel important when he was in their presence.

It is comforting to know there are such kind and devoted people in our world. I wish that everyone who has been touched by Alan can transform this good into something greater and spread the sparkle of generosity Alan had in his heart.
The people of Colon and anyone touched by Father Alan are in our prayers during this difficult time.

May God bless this wonderful friend.

Medical Blitz at the Women and Children´s Center

Friday, March 13........a lucky day for over 80 women and children who attended the Medical Blitz at the center! With Dr. Rosa, a dedicated woman from the Cancer Clinic, and Dr. Bartolo Cisneros, a medical doctor from the community, volunteering their time and sharing their expertise, the day was a huge success. Women and children from Colon came, were attended by nurses Kelly and Martine and by Colonenses nurses and physicians. They were then given prescriptions for further testing and /or for medication. The prescriptions were then filled by Marlynne using the meds from Health Partners International. Without the blitz these women would have been obliged to seek help at the local clinic and pay both the doctor´s fee and for the medication itself. This being a financial impossiblity, they simply would not have been attended to. Conditions varied from high blood pressure and stomach ulcers to respitory disease, infections and diabetes. The women and all of the community responded well and were most appreciative of the possibility of a doctor's appointment and medication too! A big thank you to all who volunteered their time and energy to the success of the medical blitz.

Completion of the photo project

We would like to share with you the outcome of our photo project. The project was held over 3 days and was a lot of fun! We would like to thank the children but also people from the Mucec Women centre who helped us put this project together.

Marlynne, Kelly and I learned a lot along the way as it was for each of us, our first experience with this kind of project. At times, we had to stop and determine which best action would be to avoid complications!!! With as many kids, let me tell you we had lots of pictures to sort out!!

We divided the children in 2 groups (one in the morning and one in the afternoon) and went out on the second day for a walk around the centre so they could take a total of 5 pictures each. The goal was to photograph places or people who meant something to them. We visited a few parks, a famous hotel, a museum, church and observed a few boats waiting to enter the Panama Canal.We learned about the history of Colon, about their friends and their environment. Once we had all the pictures printed, we met with them on the last day and asked them to make two cards with 2 of their pictures. We had blank cards, construction paper, crayons, glue and scissors so they could create whatever they wanted. We also offered them the opportunity to give a card to us to bring back to Canada so we can share with our fellow Canadians, what these children have made through this activity.

It was touching to see their smile, their creativity and their enthusiasm! Many of them wrote beautiful words for us in their cards and we all appreciated spending that time with them! Interestingly, we all managed to understand each other with a mix of Spanish, English and gestures!

We also gave them the option to do whatever they wanted with the remainder of pictures. Some of them brought them home, others donated some for a murale we are in the process of finishing for the Centre. Now, every visitor to the Mucec Centre can appreciate what a great activity we had and the nice work these children have done! They were proud and we are proud of them too!

Photos: morning and afternoon group (with Dina and Barb, the sisters of the Mucec Centre, outside the Centre)