The Phelophepa Health Train
Phelophepa means 'good clean health'- a service that has been brought to over 500,000 people since the Train's launch in 1993. The 16 carriages have so far covered a massive 60,000 miles in order to bring healthcare to areas without access to national health services.
With its staff of community nurses, dentists, opticians, counsellors and medical students, the Train travels for 9 months of the year, spending a week at each stop. Patients walk up to 20 miles to receive treatment, often queuing in their thousands to see a doctor or nurse.
Canon Collins Trust has supported the Phelophepa Health Train's Edu-Clinics for over ten years, enhancing existing health services or providing services for communities where they do not exist.
Phelophepa's staff visit communities ahead of the Train's arrival in order to meet teachers, local leaders and clinic staff. In addition to providing individual treatment, the Train's staff run workshops teaching basic healthcare to local schoolchildren. The Edu-Clinics train 25 volunteers at each stop, to ensure that health awareness lives on long after the Train has departed.
"One of my enduring memories as I observed the team through its different clinics was towards the end of the last visit as one of the Phelophepa sisters worked with four little children, two blind and two deaf. She had spent the day patiently and enthusiastically educating over a hundred children on oral hygiene and teeth brushing, now she was sat down and taking each child through the same routine but with perhaps even more care and energy than she had started with many hours previously."
Ben McGarry, independent project evaluator
A new Phelophepa Train leaflet has been produced, download here. You can call the office to order copies.
