There's Still Work To Do

Before anything else, I’d like to begin by thanking the AMOS staff and MHIRT for giving me hope during this seemingly never-ending pandemic. When I first found out our team wouldn’t be going to Nicaragua this summer, I was honestly heartbroken and gave up on things I shouldn’t have. I stopped taking my Intro to Spanish course seriously (which backfired when I had to introduce myself in Spanish), almost deleted Duolingo, and thought there was absolutely nothing I could do to help in Nicaragua from my house.
As cheesy as it may sound, AMOS reminded me there’s still work to do. There’s always work to do, even if we’re 3000 miles away. In just a few weeks, we’ve already completed a literature review, written an annotated bibliography on mobile health (mHealth) technologies and practices, and participated in the Global Health Practicum which included lectures on topics such as Privilege and Cultural Humility, Community-Based Participatory Health Care (CBPHC), and Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR). Community involvement and feedback is an important goal for this project to ensure short-term and long-term success and a significant change in education and behavior.
Our next objective is to formulate a strategy to implement an education and communication-focused mHealth technology in the rural villages of Nicaragua. We need to keep in mind, though, that many parts of Nicaragua may be low in resources and may lack network coverage. We will rely on Community Health Workers (CHWs) to relay feedback to and from the villages.
While we’re still figuring out which mHealth platform to use and the strategy for its implementation, I think it’s time for me to start practicing Spanish again. I’ve been practicing a few phrases I think I’ll be using a lot. Unfortunately, my go-to line is still “Lo siento porque no hablo. Pero, puedo tratar.” But, I’m active on Duolingo again. Here are some screenshots of Day 1 back on Duolingo. My goal is to keep the streak alive until the end of the internship and reach a crazy number of crowns. Maybe 500? Let's see.