Move-te Mais Cabo Verde 2013 Mission

Testimony of Ana Pacheco, volunteer and President of the Move-te Mais in 2012/2013, and currently a year 6 intern at the Dr. Agostinho Neto Hospital in Cidade da Praia, Cape Verde. .

What is the Move-te Mais Cabo Verde 2013 Mission about?

The Move-te Mais Cabo Verde 2013 international mission, in Santo Antão Island, continues the work started in previous volunteer missions.
For the third consecutive year, we have worked in partnership with the municipality of Porto Novo and, for the second year, with the municipality of Paúl, with the aim of including as many communities as possible in this public health programme, which is intended for all age groups at different levels.
Once more, the mission lasted one month and took place in September: the first fortnight was held in the county of Porto Novo and the second in the county of Paúl.
The criterion used to define the intervention plan was to cover locations that had not been involved in previous missions and respond to needs identified by the teams of the municipalities and respective health centres.
Our work was to implement strategies for health education and promote activities in public health and prevention capable of addressing some of the needs that these areas have. These activities included interactive lectures, cardiovascular screenings and clinical counselling, distribution of information material, sports tournaments, and knowledge assessment peddy papers, among others.
We focused on the following topics: alcoholism, smoking, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, nutrition and healthy lifestyles, oral hygiene, food hygiene, changes in puberty, early pregnancy, sexuality and STDs (including HIV/AIDS), contraception, alarm signals for various types of cancer, mosquito-borne diseases, diarrhoeal diseases, and tuberculosis. Moreover, we actively disseminated the national vaccination campaign against measles and rubella conducted by the Ministry of Health of Cape Verde.
When I take stock of the experience, I think that the Move-te Mais Cabo Verde Mission should continue every year for its impact and for the potential behind the strong relationship we maintain with our partners (City Hall of Porto Novo and City Hall of Paúl) enabling the development of sustainable work that is increasingly stronger and interventionist.

And what does this mission bring to volunteers?

This was my second mission in Santo Antão and it felt like returning “home”, seeing again places and people who are very dear to me, making new friends, and collecting professional and human experiences. The Cape Verdean morabeza that one feels in both counties has no parallel: I met people with a heart the size of the world who I will never forget and words are just not enough to thank them for their kindness and sincere friendship.
As a volunteer, I believe that this type of experience on the ground, regardless of the mission or country, is something that completes us as a person, humanizing us and allowing us to grow in academic and professional terms, all essential components for the practice of medicine that should not and cannot be forgotten.
This mission is extremely rewarding and the feedback from the communities involved and the people with whom we work is excellent. They express their enormous gratitude and willingness to have us back to continue this valuable work, which motivates us so much!
A former volunteer from our group once said: “When Africa enters us, it never leaves”. Inside me, who dreamed of this since I was a child, these words have become an absolute truth. These experiences in Cape Verde have transformed me and this was the reason why, in addition to clinical practice, I decided to stay here to do part of my year 6 internship.
When I return to Portugal, I will greatly miss (in good Portuguese fashion) this volunteer work, the colours, the smells, the sights, the rhythms, the mornas, and mainly the people who have crossed my path with whom I learned so much.
The volunteer work we do will always be praiseworthy and very valuable for our partners and the communities involved.
For all this and much more, I just wish that the Move-te Mais Association, to which I have given so much of my time, continues to grow and offer this sort of experience within and across borders to all its volunteers, as I am sure they will not regret it and will come back with different perspectives and a new way to see the world and life.
Ana Isabel Neves Pacheco
Former President of Move-te Mais Association
Year 6 student of the Integrated Master Degree in Medicine
17 October 2013