2021 Project
Kopila Valley Health Clinic - Nepal
Nestled along the dirt roads of Nepal’s most poverty-stricken villages is the Kopila Valley School and Health Clinic. Health Goes Global has partnered with the Kopila Valley Health Clinic to support preventative medical care in the rural Surkhet District of Nepal.
A HEALTHY DOSE OF PREVENTION
The Kopila Valley Health Clinic provides preventive and primary care, as well as basic health education, to the 420 students and community of Kopila Valley. Staffed by a full-time health technician, a health administrator and pharmacist, and assisted by medical professionals from the local community, the clinic provides an integrated approach to health and well-being for the underserved population of Surkhet. The community clinic combines natural holistic methods and modern Western medical treatments to help the residents and children of the area improve and maintain their quality health.
“In Kopila Valley, health and education go together like two pieces of a puzzle. After opening the school, we realized that kids wouldn’t attend regularly or be able to succeed until they were healthy and nourished – and that they wouldn’t be healthy and nourished until they came to school. That’s why we started the Kopila Valley Health Clinic in 2011. We focus primarily on preventive care, because we’ve also learned that sometimes the smallest things make the biggest difference.”
The Health Clinic has an extensive dental hygiene program, including daily tooth brushing at school and dental exams by a local dentist and treatment when necessary.
Many of the school children and women in the community face daily battles of stress, depression or other mental health concerns. The consequences can be startling: suicide is the number one killer of girls in Nepal. In 2013 the clinic opened Surkhet’s first Mental Health and Counseling Center to address this important issue.
“We believe that every child has a right to a safe home, medical care, a quality education and love. We know that when kids get the support they deserve, they will grow up to be adults prepared to tackle the challenges of poverty and violence in our world. We’re working every day to make sure our kids get what they need to build healthy, stable lives so they can be leaders in their communities, their country, and the world.”
— MAGGIE DOYNE, BLINKNOW CO-FOUNDER
Citations: www.blinknow.org
The clinic performs a number of routine preventative medical exams including:
Annual physical examination performed at the start of the school year.
Hearing and vision screening program to identify students needing hearing augmentation or visual acuity correction.
School-wide anti-parasitic program to decrease intestinal parasites and prevent reintroducing new parasites to the students.
Extensive dental hygiene program, including daily tooth brushing at school, dental exams by a local dentist and treatment when necessary.
Tuberculosis screening program to identify cases of active TB and stem the spread in our area.
