The Project
Our Vision
We believe in a world in which people do not have to worry about how to get water or whether it will make them sick. What would your life be like if you had to worry about this every day? 1.1 billion people around the world do and . The facts do not have to be like this. Our hope is to help change this.
Our Story
We are four first-year medical students from Pennsylvania State College of Medicine – Katie Dickinson, Kim Faldetta, Derek Reighard, and Chloe Wang. Kim lived in Iquitos, Peru from August 2009 to July 2010 and will now be returning with Katie, Derek, and Chloe as WHO (World Health Organization) and PAHO (Pan-American Health Organization) interns on a summer project on water use and sanitation in six municipalities surrounding Iquitos, Peru. Unbelievably, it is the largest city in Peru that is not accessible by any road and it is in the middle of the Amazon Rainforest!
We will spend several weeks administering surveys, testing various water sources, and talking to locals. For the last few weeks of our trip, we will work on a public health intervention based on the findings of our study. We will likely be training child health promoters as advocates of at home water treatment through boiling and filtration. At the conclusion of our project, we will present the data to our supervisors at WHO/PAHO and they will use that data to work on broader initiatives.
We are all incredibly excited to be going down to Iquitos. To get to know us better, click on the tab titled "The People."
The Impact
Poor sanitation can lead to a wide variety of diseases that cause significant morbidity and mortality. Cholera, leptospirosis, and hookworm are some examples of diseases that thrive in areas of poor sanitation and can cause serious harm or even death to their victims. Each of these diseases occurs or has occurred in at least one of the municipalities surrounding Iquitos, capital of the Loreto region of Peru.
In the municipalities surrounding Iquitos, Peru, many people do not have access to running water or clean water. Many must obtain their water from nearby rivers, which may or may not be contaminated with the diseases mentioned above. The inhabitants in all of these communities face significant barriers to obtaining one of the most fundamental human needs: potable water.
It is our goal to assess household water collection, treatment, and use in six municipalities near Iquitos. We will then implement an intervention to help reduce the worm burden and disease transmission seen in these regions.
This project will serve as a tremendous learning opportunity for the whole team – fostering compassion for those in under-served nations, as well as developing leadership skills and team collaboration as we work together. We firmly believe, with the time and effort we put in, there is real potential here to contribute to a possible solution and give the people of Iquitos the clean water they deserve.
