Clinton School student Mark Lienhart, who is helping fight foot desease in Ethiopia for his international project, sent us an update on his and classmate Ben Kaufman’s travels in the country. Lienhart is working with the Mossy Foot Treatment and Prevention Association (MFTPA) to collect data on prevention, treatment and rehabilitation for Podoconiosis (Mossy Foot), and Kaufman is working with TOMS Shoes, the company that gives a pair of shoes away to those in need for every pair purchased, to create a distribution plan to provide shoes in Ethiopia to children at risk of contracting a skin infection caused by exposure to irritant soil. Here’s the update:
The project is going good so far. Ben and I left Addis Ababa on Wednesday to come to Sodo. Sodo is where the Mossy Foot Treatment and Prevention main office is. It is about 6 hours south of Addis. Ben returned to Addis on Friday, and I will be here until at least next Friday.
I prefer the countryside to the city. There is less commotion and the surroundings are beautiful: large green mountains with mud/grass huts on the sides surrounded by plots of banana trees and corn.
So far I have visited five of the 15 clinics that MFTPA operates. On Monday I should have time to sit down with Meskele, the executive director of MFTPA, and ask him some interview questions to begin composing the guide for other clinics in the country.
Ben travels from Addis out West on Tuesday and will be gone for about a week.