Youth driven programme making a difference

By Deidre Tautua-Fanene 18 July 2017, 12:00AM

Members of the public received free health screening and helpful advice about health and other health-related matters at Vaitele-uta last Saturday.

The help came from staff members of the Ministry of Health who responded to a call from the Congregational Christian Church of Samoa (C.C.C.S) for a health clinic to be conducted on their premises for church members and outsiders.

The programme was initiated by the youth as well as the church’s senior Pastor, Reverend Muao Fagasua.

Darryl Pupi said the voluntary work was all about giving back to the community.

 “The officials here including myself are all employees of the Ministry of Health and what we have in common is that we all attend this church,” he said.

“So we are offering free health screening to members of our church. Instead of going out to other villages we decided to do it here at Vaitele where we attend church.”

The programme was strongly supported by the Ministry of Health.

 “The equipment that we are using comes from the Ministry of Health.

“As you know Vaitele has a big population with people from everywhere and so we wanted to reach out to the people instead of going around to other villages.

“So today we are conducting screening for diabetes, hypertension, Body Mass Index (B.M.I.) and typhoid for all ages from babies to senior citizens.”

Mr. Pupi said this is the first time they have conducted a programme such as this.

“We are trying to make it not only annually but every two months as Vaitele have a lot of people,” he said.

“This is to show that even though Vaitele has a very big population we can still help people by offering free screening on Saturdays and we are starting with people from our congregation.

“This is our way of giving back to the community.

“In the long run we wish to sustain it because it’s a free service and we want the programme to move forward from here so we can do more.

“This programme is an encouragement to other congregations that have people who work in the Ministry of Health to do the same.”

By Deidre Tautua-Fanene 18 July 2017, 12:00AM
Samoa Observer

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