Clinic number 3 is in the books, it was a beautiful one. Just shy of 600 patients were seen, 55 pairs of those amazing glasses we talked about yesterday were given out, a few hospital visits for a broken leg and 2 Malaria positive patients (which we can treat in clinic if caught in its early stage, otherwise patients are too sick and need more supportive hospital care), wound care did a great job with a few return patients....we will talk about wounds later this week. It was a bit of a cooler day weather wise and the clinic was held in a much larger church today so we had room to stretch out wings and fly through the day with ease. One of the clinical programs we provide is school visits where we offer deworming to groups of younger kids in the lower grades, there are government programs that offer deworming on a yearly basis but aren't always up and running,  by offering our services we know that the students have gotten at least one deworming per school year., the school is always associated with the village we are running out clinic in. Its such a fun time to see all the little ones lined up in their uniforms like little birds, opening their mouths to get their chewable tablet ( you just can't hand a 3,4,5-ish yr old kiddo a pill, we all know 99% of them would lose it or throw it out, so we administer one to each student)Another part of our school visits is sexual health and distribution of reuasble sanitary pad kits. Sexual health in Kenya looks a little different then it does for our kids in Canada. We focus on puberty, growth and development along with culturally respectful and compassionate concepts and languaging. I cannot stress enough that there are so many nuances we as Canadians are not used to or at times, even aware of , when discussing sexual safety with the young girls in Kenya. We promote understanding consent, choice and the safety. We place emphasis on empowerment. While it is hard for us to understand  some of these customs or common occurences it is imperative that these conversations are had with appropriate cultural and social respect.  We intend to empower young girls to know that are valuable and have choice. The same concepts are taught to the young men as well, we also firmly believe they have choice and need to understand consent. We discuss STI and prevention, testing and treatment, we discuss pregnancy and prevention of such if desired.....parents ...rest assured kids world wide know ALOT about ALOT.....and thats not a bad thing at all. Proper sexual health education far outweighs incorrect or inappropriate information any dayThe reusable sanitary pad program is so valuable. Providing girls with access to pads keeps them in school, keeps them in social circles and gives them a sense of pride and dignity that they are able to care for themselves during their menstrual cycle without having to fear being without pads.It is thanks so many volunteer sewers that the pad kits are available. Thank you for your generous gift of time to prepare them, your efforts have such an massive impact on the lives of girls. We run out every time and always have young gals coming up to the windows after school to ask if we have any left, its hard to say "we ran out" so lets keep sewing <3We can't do this teaching alone,there is always one of our CNFA team members along with a Kenyan nurse to ensure there is no language barrier and cultural limitations are respected. Today one of our student nurses was able to tag along as see Lynn in action. She is an amazing facilitatior for this class handling teen questions with ease and respect!!!  (You will meet Lynn soon)Tomorrow is clinic number 4, we will be in Wangulu <3