Bikram Bucha and Saurya Dhungel
BPH fourth year students
Maharajgunj Medical Campus, IOM.
Getting internship at BNMT Nepal, one of the esteemed NGOs built on the foundation of BNMT UK with the history of serving the people of Nepal since 1967 began with full of excitement, a bit of nervousness but very hopeful for lots of learning experiences and networking to become public health professionals, a career we wanted to pursue. Indeed, the four months internship at BNMT offered us many new learning experiences and professional networking and the opportunities to enhance our skills and knowledge. For the first three months placement at Makawanpur regional office, we were directly involved in the implementation of European Union funded IMPACT TB Project, and Wellcome Seed Award Project in all four implementing districts at Makawanpur, Chitwan, Dhanusha and Mahottari.
We consider ourselves fortunate to have been involved as equal to staff in every training, workshops, meetings, field activities and day to day office activities. The field experiences including microscopic camps at Raiguan and Shikharpur at Makwanpur, interviewing costing questionnaires to TB patients at Chitwan, health institutional visits at Mahottari, Dhanusha and Chitwan proved to be instrumental in understanding the health system functioning in new federal government of Nepal. We also got the opportunity to enhance our creativity and writing skills by assisting in writing BNMT Annual report 2017/18, developing concept and ideas for proposal and writing the proposal itself with the team in the central office. In addition, we also conducted a learning project on improving knowledge and attitude on TB by using Mithila Art under IEC activities of IMPACT TB project at Dhanusha which enhanced our skills on project management cycle. For this, we developed IEC materials using Mithila Art and established IEC corners in three health facilities.
All of this couldn’t have been possible without the support and guidance of entire BNMT team from central to the district. The guidance, full support, warm and friendly nature of the entire BNMT team always motivated us to learn more, work hard and perform better. The professional networking with the professionals from Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, University of Liverpool, and the entire BNMT team will always be a guidance in the days to come. We are very grateful to have worked in BNMT with such wonderful team and gained invaluable learning experiences.
We are very thankful to BNMT Nepal for accepting us as interns and developing us as public health professionals. The internship at BNMT will surely be a stepping stone in our career as public health professional.
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Living beyond TB
Sunita (name changed) is a 51-year-old housewife living in a remote village Simalghari in Chitwan district. She belongs to a poor family. Although suffering from poverty, she has lived a happy life. One day after returning from her father’s house,...