Post by tomcamp on Jun 25, 2007 9:07:37 GMT -5
These are some thoughts from Mary and Hugh Guffey after returning from two weeks in Honduras. They have some ideas that helped them be more efficient. For more on this, feel free to contact them:
Mary and Hugh Guffey:
Hello guys,
The manpower needs are directly dependent upon how much service you plan on providing. With Discovery we had Donna and five regular team members. With Jane's team we used Donna, a second interpreter and four team members. The difference was with Jane's team we did not do the pressure scans.
You could get by with as few as three US team members, but it would be tight. If you could get someone like Mario to actually build glasses you could use him. Last year he did that for us since it was just Donna, Mary and I, and he was a great help.
Whatever you do, the key is to stay together and maintain strict crowd control. This will allow you to adjust the pace of the team's work and allow you to shift team members between functions to reduce bottle-necks. Over the two weeks we developed a couple of tricks to help here. One was to have a door keeper who took up the report sheets at the door and directed the patients to stand away from the door in the shade. Then he/she would call the patients in in order using a serial number on the forms. Mary would enlist the help of a local to do this. There always are people who simply want to be part of the effort.
The stay together suggestion results from the difficulty we had in Ciriboya when we allowed the team to be split into a testing sub-group in one room and a diagnostic/dispensing group in another room. This really cluttered-up the process and made doing the post tests of glasses a problem.
We really want to help make your team's efforts as successful as possible. The job is not really that difficult once it gets going. When you get your team identified, let us know and we'll come to Birmingham or Jasper and spend however much time that is necessary to get you comfortable with the process.
During our two weeks we witnessed some true miracles. We had several occasions where an individual could not see at 20/160 who left the clinic seeing at least 20/25 binocularly. The smile on such a person's face is the blessing that God has waiting for you.
We are so very proud of you guys and are so thankful that you have allowed us to be a small part. You will be in our prayers.
I am copying this to Yvonne with Catherine's team since we will also be helping her train for their trip.
guf
hjguffey@earthlink.net
Mary and Hugh Guffey:
Hello guys,
The manpower needs are directly dependent upon how much service you plan on providing. With Discovery we had Donna and five regular team members. With Jane's team we used Donna, a second interpreter and four team members. The difference was with Jane's team we did not do the pressure scans.
You could get by with as few as three US team members, but it would be tight. If you could get someone like Mario to actually build glasses you could use him. Last year he did that for us since it was just Donna, Mary and I, and he was a great help.
Whatever you do, the key is to stay together and maintain strict crowd control. This will allow you to adjust the pace of the team's work and allow you to shift team members between functions to reduce bottle-necks. Over the two weeks we developed a couple of tricks to help here. One was to have a door keeper who took up the report sheets at the door and directed the patients to stand away from the door in the shade. Then he/she would call the patients in in order using a serial number on the forms. Mary would enlist the help of a local to do this. There always are people who simply want to be part of the effort.
The stay together suggestion results from the difficulty we had in Ciriboya when we allowed the team to be split into a testing sub-group in one room and a diagnostic/dispensing group in another room. This really cluttered-up the process and made doing the post tests of glasses a problem.
We really want to help make your team's efforts as successful as possible. The job is not really that difficult once it gets going. When you get your team identified, let us know and we'll come to Birmingham or Jasper and spend however much time that is necessary to get you comfortable with the process.
During our two weeks we witnessed some true miracles. We had several occasions where an individual could not see at 20/160 who left the clinic seeing at least 20/25 binocularly. The smile on such a person's face is the blessing that God has waiting for you.
We are so very proud of you guys and are so thankful that you have allowed us to be a small part. You will be in our prayers.
I am copying this to Yvonne with Catherine's team since we will also be helping her train for their trip.
guf
hjguffey@earthlink.net