In Livingstone and Lusaka

Joanna has spent the last 
week in Livingstone, 200 miles south of Lusaka at the Livingstone General Hospital following an invitation from Dr Sheikh supported by the SMS Dr 
Kachimba, delivering training to 10 hospital staff in the mental health unit there. Participants included medical staff, occupational therapists, clinical officers, a nurse and a physiotherapist. The Occupational Therapy department welcomed us with training space and enthusiasm and it was a privilege to work with such a close knit team. They even managed to come up with some clay which was well used! This was the first time the training has been delivered over a concentrated 5 days and worked very successfully. At the end of the course all ten participants passed and their feedback and evaluation of the course was very positive. " Did not know clients can open up that quick. Art has made it possible."- "How I feel and think about patients has definitely changed. After developing significant rapport with the patients as am able to look at them as human being with potential to develop themselves and achieve their aspirations."
We hope that this model of the training will be useful in similar hospital settings elsewhere in Zambia as it could be an efficient use of both trainers and participants time and resources.

Meantime, Simon has been coordinating the training at Chainama Hills College Hospital in Lusaka for both hospital staff and student nurses and student clinical officers.

These courses are now nearly finished and will end in the next week when participants have completed their final evaluation and assessment. The course for hospital staff has been led by Wala Nalungwe, one of our new Zambia trainee trainers, as part of our plan to establish the sustainability of the training within the resources of the Zambian healthcare system.

We are now in the final two weeks of our time in Zambia and are trying to hold meetings with key players within the health system here to embed the ZTA training within the wider system of training for health professionals in Zambia and to carry forward the monitoring and evaluation programme for the work. It is going to be a very intense few days as we try to round off the trainings and meetings. We still hope we may be able to do a second workshop with MHUNZA members before we leave on 27^th October. The second planned workshop had to be cancelled because the hospital where it was to be held had no water or power.

All this to do and the temperature is climbing again to the mid 30s this coming week. The sun is almost directly overhead at this season, so the only thing to do is not to go out in the midday sun!
All very well for him here in comparatively cool Lusaka but I had to walk to and fro to the Hospital in Livingstone in a seriously high midday sun!