by Ger Evan
January 27, 2021
I am Gerardo II S. Evan, A 4th year BS Radiologic Technology Student, and currently the Project Assistant of GM Bicol under the Aids Healthcare Foundation (AHF) project. I am a trained Community Based HIV Screening (CSB) Motivator, HIV Counselor, and a Peer-Educator/Trainor.
As a paramedical student and soon-to-be medical practitioner, I believe that working in a healthcare setting and being part of community development work has no difference at all. It serves the same purpose, it serves the same goal. It both aims to utilize the available resources to assist them in their health challenges as well as to utilize technology to provide them with the highest level of care.
Healthcare Setting and Community Developmental work, I believe - have little difference in approach to health promotion to address the contexts on which people live, work and play as the subject of inquiry and intervention to the needs and capacities of people in different settings. This increases the likelihood of success because it offers strategies to situate practice in its context. It could be a basis of optimizing interventions for specific contextual contingencies, target crucial factors in the organizations context influencing behavior, and render settings that could influence intervention design and delivery.
Moreover, development work along the lines of sexual and reproductive health, as what we are doing in GM Bicol, is faced with different challenges. Being caught unprepared without available protective gears and supplies during the onset of the pandemic and the threats of being infected and infecting clients to me is one of the biggest hurdle we encountered to continue on what we are doing. However, with our burning passion as members of the organization for the community and service, we were able to win over the challenges and turned it into one of the pillars of our strength, holding on to our commitments and dedications to advance sexual and reproductive health and rights.
Despite all the challenges, we continued on pushing forward. Pondering on the almost two years in the pandemic, and on the other challenges that the organization may face in the coming days, I am confident that we will never stop from fulfilling GM's promise to the community.