Jessica Stuart is a producer who has worked with Global Network in the past. Recently, she traveled to Burundi where she captured on film and camera a four-year national NTD program that is supported by a generous grant from the Legatum Foundation. The program has been supported and implemented through a partnership that includes the Global Network, the Burundi Ministry of Health, Geneva Global, CBM, and SCI. We will be featuring excerpts from Jessica’s experiences in Burundi; below is the first entry from her notes:
Sunday June 19, 2011- Arrival in Bujumbura
Keith Walker and I met up in DC and traveled together from Dulles Airport to Addis Ababa to Nairobi to Bujumbura….
Map is an edited Google Map
About 16 hours. We reached the airport in Bujumbura which looked something like a building out of the cartoon Superfriends. Several large bubbles, or igloos, or something. I’ve not seen anything quite like it before.
When we arrived at the hotel, we met up with our soundman Kenny Geraghty, who had flown in from Capetown, South Africa earlier in the day.
Our family was together again.
(From l tor: Film Crew: Keith Walker, Jessica Stuart, Kenny Geraghty)
Kenny, the gentle giant- hysterical- warm-and has more experience in his pinky than most have in a lifetime. Keith is the most ridiculously talented and relentless shooter that makes all the women blush. And then there is me. Even though we only meet up in bizarre places in the world, every time we are together it’s like coming home.
We are traveling together this time to document the work of the Global Network and its partners, working to eliminate Neglected Tropical Diseases around the world.
NTDs ravage countries like Burundi. They affect the poorest of the poor- the bottom billion, often invisible to the outside world. The amazing thing- these diseases are preventable and treatable- for less than $1.25 a day.
I still can’t get over how utterly cruel NTDs are. One has to look way below the surface, to the bottom poorest billion in the world to find them. These diseases keep children out of school, are debilitating and disfiguring, and cost billions of dollars a year in lost worker productivity. These diseases cause stigma in the community. They are the cruelest of the cruel.
Lush agriculture in Northern Burundi.
Burundi has its own political and infrastructure issues, along with such sickness. Civil War and Genocide plagued the country for years. It was only in 2008 that a peace agreement was made between internal warring factors. The country is filled with kind and curious people–people who want work and prosperity NOW. They want to put the “crisis” (as they call it) behind them. Burundi is beautiful. Everywhere we look there are tea plantations, coffee farms, rice fields, banana trees, and pineapples. This is a country that could prosper on its own. But something like Neglected Tropical Diseases keeps the people down.
I’ve learned the entire country of Burundi is at risk of infection by at least one STH (Soil Transmitted Helminthes- or worms). Half the country is at risk for schistosomiasis, and trachoma is a serious public health problem.
» Read more: Personal Perspectives: Inside look at Burundi’s national NTD prgoram
Indra Struyven is a medical doctor. She completed the diploma course of tropical medicine in London (LSHTM). Currently she’s working for CBM, as a technical assistant to the Ministry of Health in Burundi, to assist the team of the Ministry in their fight against NTD’s. Before she was working as a GP in Dar es Salaam.
Meet Felix, a young boy from rural Burundi. He’s ten years old, but he looks no older than six–the first of many clues that indicated he was infected with an NTD.
