Team OdontoBLAST, part 1

Hey everyone!

After a very tiring but very rewarding two weeks, I am back from Peru! 

But first:

What, you are asking, is an odontoBLAST?  To keep it short (and hopefully not-too-nerdy), it's one of the cells that makes teeth, specifically dentin.  Of course, we had to capitalize BLAST because we knew we were going to have a great time!  Many thanks to Candice and Leslie for coming up with this awesome name for our team.

I have been wondering since I got home Saturday afternoon how I was going to fit an almost two-week trip into a somewhat cohesive set of blog posts.  I think the best way to start is to describe a little bit about Coprodeli, the organization we worked with while in Peru.

The Coprodeli Foundation, a not-for-profit international organization was created by Padre Miguel Ranera, a Spanish missionary priest in 1989.  Padre Miguel designed the organization to assist the poorest families of Peru.  His work began in Callao, Peru's largest port just outside of Lima, where between 80-90% of the population live in extreme poverty. Coprodeli began work in Pachacutec, a shantytown sector formed during extreme political corruption, in 2000.  The organization then began intervention in the Ica region (more south and more agriculturally based) in 2006.  After the massive earthquake that hit Peru in 2007 (it was about an 8.0 - the same magnitude as the Haiti earthquake), work in the south was expanded to not only Ica, but also Chincha, Pisco, and Canete.

 the school at Pachacutec

church in background

Sites built by Coprodeli attempt to effectively use shared resources to promote education, health, nutrition, etc. by putting a school, health care center, and outreach center all in one location.  This way, when mom drops her kids off at school and has an upper respiratory infection, she can be encouraged to see the physician, and the kids have a place to be (that is safe) while she works when school is over.  In the south, the plans also include a church, earthquake-resistant housing, and in some places, what is called a "business incubator" - essentially somewhere for microbusinesses to develop and grow. 

Each site is more or less at a various stage of development.  The older sites (Callao and Pachacutec) have nine (I think?) schools between them, and admission is very competitive!  One site we went to in the south, Pisco, I think, was so new that only the church has been funded at this time, so the school is temporarily set up in the church so the kids can learn -- it was just easier to get money for the church than the school. 

what will be the school at Pisco - see how different it is from the one above!

Coprodeli also has a girls' home and a boys' home in Callao for children from badly broken homes - parents on drugs, absolutely cannot afford to feed them, etc.  We visited both while we were in Callao.

Whew!  There is a very, very brief and unofficial (but hopefully pretty accurate) description of Coprodeli.  I will be posting more about our day-to-day doings in my next post! 

Until then, here's a picture of our whole group so you know who's who:

back:  Zach, Dr. B (Mickey Bernstein DDS from Germantown), RJ, Burton, Candice, Leslie, Alycia (CoprodeliUSA)

front:  Megan, Michelle, me, and Doctora Jenny (Coprodeli in Peru)