Excerpts From the Greater Good Magazine – Science Based Insights from a Meaningful Life
In a 2006 study, Jorge Moll and colleagues at the National Institutes of Health found that when people give to charities, it activates regions of the brain associated with pleasure, social connection, and trust, creating a “warm glow” effect.
When we travel to Bilwi, Puerto Cabezas, we regularly visit the local hospital to check on our students and some of our graduates who are now practicing doctors. My first visit was in 2016 and I was shocked to see the conditions (see the Jan. 2017 blog ‘My First Trip: Bilwi, Puerto Cabezas).
These nine remarkable woman graduated from URACCAN University on Feb. 24, 2018. We now have a total of thirty-one doctors who were supported by your donations and are now working as doctors in that region. These doctors received your support, through Adelante Mujer, between one to four years during their studies. All nine have now begun their internships at the local hospital and clinics.
It has been just over one year since I made my first visit to Bilwi, Nicaragua. Since then the students I met, especially the new applicants, have been on my mind. They are hard to forget.
Many of our students are from an area in Nicaragua along the Rio Coco ‘Coconut River’ called Waspam. Bordering on Honduras along Nicaragua’s Atlantic Coast, it is a 4-5 hour drive to Puerto Cabezas.
On our bi-annual trip to Bilwi, Puerto Cabezas this past December, we met many medical students who came to apply for our financial assistance. Once again, I am impressed by the caliber of these young women. They are serious, determined, intelligent, and devoted to their goal of helping to heal the sick in their communities.
Esther
As I sit here in the Managua Airport awaiting my flight from the balmy tropics of Nicaragua to the freezing blasts of another Wisconsin winter, I have time to reflect on our recent interviews with our current students from medical school in Puerto Cabezas as well as the candidates, young women who, despite living in one of the most impoverished regions in the world, refuse to give up on their dream of bringing medical help to those who, like themselves, have had to survive with little or nothing.
Continue reading “Feliz Navidad – Merry Christmas – Krismis Yamni”
This is Jurica, one of our student doctors in her 6th year, and this is a translation of what she wrote regarding some of the work she is currently doing in the hospital in Bilwi, Puerto Cabezas.
Sister Diane made the semi-annual trip to Puerto Cabezas/Bilwi in early May 2017. The schedule is always full on these visits, beginning at 9:00 a.m. and often not ending until 8:00 p.m. While there she meets with our contacts at the university and visits the hospital where she often runs into our graduates. She meets with our local administrator and handles our banking needs. The most important meetings though are those with our current students and the interviews with new applicants.
This is Puerto Cabezas/Bilwi as described in The Lonely Planet. “This impoverished Caribbean port town and ethnic melting pot sprawls along the coast and back into the scrubby pines on wide brick streets and red-earth roads, full of people and music, smiles and sideways glances.
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