Greetings from Perú - Wayne Centrone

Karen Falkenstein, Director of Nursing and Evaluation, working with one of the firefighter trainers in Arequipa.

Two days into this trip and we’ve really hit the ground running. To start with, we’ve had HBI staff in-country for a few weeks. Dr. Bob Gehringer, HBI's Medical Director, has been busy with neonatal resuscitation trainings, Karen presented at a conference and organized all of the details for the emergency medicine project in the city of Arequipa, and Carmen Zavala, Perú Project Director, has been pulling all of the pieces together to make everything run smoothly.
 
Ben Grass, Director of Operations, and I arrived on Friday morning after a 24-hour commute from Portland. Our plane was delayed leaving Atlanta and we didn’t arrive in Lima until 6 am. After a few short hours of rest, we hit the ground running and haven’t let our feet touch the ground since.
 
We've already met with the administrator for a new social responsibility program at National University of San Marcos, the oldest and most respected university in Perú, facilitated a training of firefighter “super” trainers for the emergency medicine project in Arequipa (a less than 24-hour trip to Arequipa for myself) and, Bob and I are on our way to the jungle city of Tarapoto for three days of neonatal resuscitation training with a new team of midwife trainers. Needless-to-say, it’s been a busy trip so far.
 
Next week we will have staff going in a number of different directions, with Dr. Bob going further into the jungle to continue the NRP train-the-trainer program, Karen working tirelessly with our partners in Arequipa, and Ben and Carmen headed to Yungay to provide comprehensive dental care to the Girasoles at the Union Biblica home in Kusi. I will be back in Lima on Wednesday afternoon working with a few critical partners and getting ready for our team retreat over the weekend.
 
Speaking of the team retreat, the whole staff will be meeting over the weekend of October 21 to review our year-to-date, plan for 2018, and continue to build our vision and strategy for the future. It’s a great time for our whole staff to come together. I really look forward to our annual team retreats.
 
Stay tuned for further updates, but for now, please know that Health Bridges International is busy. Thanks for all of your continued support – 

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