Eva Demaya Centre aims to improve the life of the local community and help its development through health care, orphan care, community assistance, sports, micro-finance and agroforestry activities. It currently employs 45 staff and regularly hosts volunteers from Europe who come and share their skills and knowledge with the staff and community.
The centre aims to offer a quality service to a very rural and poor community which depends mainly on subsistence farming with very few off-farm activities. Transport and communication are very limited in the area and Eva Demaya Centre tries to offer services such as healthcare to improve the lives of the 26,000 people living in the area.
The Healthcare programme includes an orthodox clinic, a maternity, an Under-Fives clinic, an HIV/AIDS and VCT programme, a traditional medicine practice and homeopathy.
When visiting the Eva Demaya clinic, patients get the opportunity to visit the resident homeopath. Homeopathy is a very valuable asset to the centre as medicines are very cheap and easy to store. Therefore the service is free of charge. Homeopathy has proved to be effective for many patients, especially those suffering from respiratory problems, malnutrition, malaria, tuberculosis and many other illnesses. The homeopathy clinic also offers a remedy for people who suffer from AIDS and does monthly check-ups for people who have been tested HIV-positive.
Mobile clinics are run monthly in other villages such as Hewe and Kampenda.
Highly experienced homeopaths regularly visit the centre and have been training 15 people selected in the local area in first aid homeopathy. These trainees were taught 17 remedies to treat the most prevalent diseases and afflictions, as well as nutrition, hygiene and HIV/AIDS prevention. The volunteers are extremely valuable for First Aid, disease treatment and health education in the local community. They also help to raise awareness about nutrition, hygiene and the prevention of AIDS and other illnesses.
Because of the rural settings these first aid homeopaths work in, they would benefit from a bicycle. This would allow them to cover more villages and thus:
The First Aid homeopaths work on a voluntary basis and therefore don’t get paid for their services. The Centre offers homeopathy free of charge and so do the volunteers to their communities. The local population is extremely poor and governmental health services in Malawi are also offered free of charge. It is important that the Eva Demaya Centre can at least offer this service to the population without them having to pay for it.
The bicycle that would possibly be provided to a volunteer would assist the local community tremendously as the volunteer can reach so many more people. The volunteer will also be more mobile for his other duties, thus saving time to do more health work. It is estimated that the provision of a bicycle will increase the number of people reached by a volunteer by at least 25%. Given the policy of Cycling out of Poverty, this percentage increase in the numbers of people reached could possibly serve as a criterion for the volunteer to earn his/her bicycle. If this criterion is not reached within a year the bicycle will have to be handed back and will be made available to new volunteers who will be trained in the future. The initial number of patients visited and the increase in number of patients visited will be decided upon per volunteer as circumstances differ per volunteer.
The possibility for the volunteer to earn their own bicycle will be a strong motivation for them to continue their voluntary service to the community!
The availability of bicycles for the volunteers will make a substantial improvement to the health care situation and therefore the living conditions of the people here in northern Malawi.