New Fast Fact - Food

Ah the all important food!  The Filipino people are known for their food and hospitality, from what I have been told, you will frequently be offered food and have up to 5 meals a day plus snacks.  Fiesta are frequent, with an open house policy.  The town gets together with an open door policy. As you a celebrate down the street you just pop into your neighbours house which will have a vast spread of goodies on the table and eat with them, then move onto the next house until you get home!  See the fast facts for info on what specialties there may be.

Aussie Training Week Completed

I have just finished a full week of training in preparation for the project.  It was just awesome! A very professional, informative, motivating and full on week.   All volunteers on this intake were present. There are over 140 volunteers sent out each intake (4 intakes per year).  The buzz in the room was just awesome; just imagine over 140 young people (18-30) in one room all charged to volunteer overseas; the noise from all the conversations was constant and loud, the enthusiasm and energy contagious.

Information sessions went from 8.30-5.30 every day, tiring, but very informative and all useful info.  It was interesting to learn about the who's, what's and why's of aid programs.  Did you know that Australia spends only $3/person/week on aid?! That works out to be only a coffee a week! (approx $3 billion/year - 0.025% of GDP) The mission is to double this by 2015 and both sides of politics have promised to do so.

So I got to meet the other 6 participants going to the Philippines, they are awesome and also very excited about their projects.  There is a mix of people doing education, environment and business projects, I am the only one in the Philippines completing a health project.  There was lots of information about development, what it is and what is the best method for greatest impact etc.  There was great debates and discussions around these topics.  I found these most interesting and came to the realisation that this world of development is where I want to be.  So fascinating and inspirational.  This is a biased comment at the moment, because all the presenters of the program were very good and passionate about their topics, so much so, that I was nearly inspired to sign up for a Masters program on the spot!  We broke into country groups to discuss communication, cultural customs, concerns and general information.  We were lucky enough to have our country support person present, and he is awesome! Lots of concerns laid to rest.  We also broke into theme groups so I got to net work with all the health people.  About 4 OT's are going to be placed in this intake, all in very varied projects. The networking was greatly appreciated.

We had comprehensive briefings about medical, security, and counseling services; we have 24/7 support around the world looking after our security, mental and physical health.  The support is so awesome and extremely professional and well organised.

A information session at the Philippine Embassy was enlightening.  It appears that I will be eating a lot as the people are very sharing and everything is based around food.  The embassy staff were just beautiful and so keen for us to experience their beloved country.  From the information presented, the countryside looks just amazing and the people so caring.  I managed to have a great chat with the assistant ambassador who was particularly interested in Australian health and how this could be used in the Philippines.

I finished the week, extremely motivated and reassured that this is what I want to do, I just want to get there now.  So I have, 8 more working days (thanks to the Easter looong weekend - there is still so much to do!) one more round of vaccinations, lots of farewell dinners and parties and a house to pack all before the 22nd of April (departure day)

Contact with the Host Organisation

I finally made contact with the host organisation.  My manager will be Andrew, a Physical Therapist, and he appears to be very organised, eager and enthusiastic person.  So a few more deatils about the project:
* The project will be to design Occupational Therapy training packages for the Physical Therapists and community therapists (the equivalent of allied health assistants or technical officers in Australia) to implement with their client group.
* Simon (the NGO) has an early intervention program and a community rehab program attached to the hospital where I will be based.  There is also a community that Simon built that is for families with children with disability that I hope to become involved in.
* The client base will be mainly children with Cerebral Palsy.  Andrew would also like me to look into therapy modules for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder as this is being identified more.
* The definition of Disability at Simon also includes Stoke, Arthritis and they are not limited with age.  * Accommodation is still unknown as yet, but Andrew is working on it.

Initially, I found the idea that I was not going to be training OT's a little confronting.  Professional pride took over; OT skills are unique to OT and should only be implemented by OT's, what am I doing, am I doing a dis-service to my profession by participating in this project?!  On reflection,  I thought, what do you do when there are no OT's and the organisation wants and see's the benefits of OT, you have to start somewhere.  There is a lot of discussion about trans-disciplinary skills in disability and just maybe it is my job to support this interest in OT and show them how beneficial OT really is, this could be the start of an OT department, Bring it on!

I have a weeks training coming up, so will let you know how that goes...