Wednesday, June 3, 2015
B1
T HINK G LOBALLY , G ROW L OCALLY
By KIRBY NEUMANN-REA
News editor
Digging in the dirt is the
same no matter which conti-
nent you’re on.
That was evident last week
when a group of international
medical professionals put on
gardening gloves and got on
their knees to plant cucum-
bers at the Hood River FISH
food bank community garden.
Garden volunteer coordina-
tor Susan Randolph told the
visitors she was concerned
about their clothes.
“Don’t worry about getting
our clothes dirty! We are
ready,” Dr. Abdinoor Mo-
hamed of Kenya told her.
The seven visitors were in
Hood River May 27 to learn
about technology to help
reach rural and underserved
citizens, through the Interna-
tional Visitor Leadership Pro-
gram officered by the U.S.
State Department’s Office of
Inter national
Visi-
tors/Bureau of Educational
and Cultural Affairs.
“It’s a great program,” said
China’s Dr. Bihu Gao of the
Leadership visit, who came to
get ideas about how to im-
prove treatment analyses for
elderly patients in rural areas.
The group also visited One
“We are really
excited that this
facility is about
to get up and
running.
It will go a
long way.”
— TODD DIERKER
Medical visitors from developing countries
learn, and plant, in Hood River visit
Photos by Kirby Neumann-Rea
PLANTING AT Hood River FISH are Reham Abdelmohsen, left, a community health workers supervisor with Medecins Sans Frontieres
(Doctors Without Borders) in Egypt, and Dr. Raed Sabbah, head of the board of Union of Heath Care Committtees, from Palestine, right,
and Dr. Bihu Gao, director of Medical Affairs, Zhongshan Hospital, Dalian University in China, standing.Also participating were Dr. Farhana
Sultana, Medical officer with Swapara Union Sub-Center in Bangladesh; Dr. Abdinoor Mohamed, chief officer, public and sanitation, Wajir
County government, Kenya; Eman Alsourani, external relations manager, Union of Health Care Committees, Gaza, Palestine; and Dr.
Maher Aljohani, medical resident, King Khalid University Hospital, Saudi Arabia.
Community Health (formerly
La Clinica) in Hood River, Ore-
gon Health Sciences Universi-
ty and the Oregon Rural
Based Practice Network in
Portland, Virginia Garcia
Memorial Hospital in Cedar
Hills, and Warm Springs
Health Center in War m
Springs, before flying out to
Louisville, Ky., to round out
their two-week stay.
They are seeking responses
to a variety of health chal-
lenges to rural residents in
their homelands.
Eman Alsourani, of Gaza,
Palestine, said she came to
learn ways to improve prima-
ry care in the densely-populat-
ed Gaza Strip, which has expe-
rienced wars with Israel in
2008 and 2014, but receives
most of its food imports from
Israel. She said Gaza residents
try to grow their own food, but
the gardens have often been
destroyed in shelling. She
added that the world-class
strawberries grown commer-
cially there are sold to Israel
rather than for local consump-
tion.
“Many forms of aid coming
in, but I need to educate peo-
ple about these food aid boxes,
to reconsider what you have at
home. You can use it badly
and it affects their health,”
she said. A particular problem
is lack of protein, and she said
aid groups can do more to im-
prove labeling as well as as-
sessing individual family
needs and packaging food-
stuffs accordingly.
Gao said that in China,
“Young people go to the cities,
and only the elderly people
stay. The problem is that they
have no medical (services)
there, so I came to the United
States to learn how is the sys-
tem organized. I’m very im-
pressed.”
On Wednesday, Dr. Gao was
first to select cucumber starts
from a flat held by Randolph.
“My generation in China,
we experienced (farm work),”
he said. “As students, until
middle school we study in the
morning and in the afternoon
we go to farm. This is some-
thing very familiar.”
Helping at FISH garden
seemed to reconnect these
doctors and professionals
with their upbringing.
“When I was a child I did
this with my family,” said
Reham Abdelaleem Hussain
See GLOBAL, Page B2
FISH Garden grows with
seeds, water, and volunteers
Photo by Kirby Neumann-Rea
GARDEN volunteer manager Susan Randolph shows visitors around the garden. In the background at
left is the new FISH facility; at right is Our Redeemer/Asbury Church. The food bank building and the
garden are both on land donated by the church.
G ORGE
F RESH AT F ARMERS
M ARKETS:
How do the clients qualify?
Do you use pesticides?
How do you grow your volunteers?
These were just a few questions the for-
eign visitors asked local folks involved in
nutrition education and food provision.
FISH volunteer Debby Chenoweth said
clients need to show proof of residence in
Hood River County or Mosier, giving
them a punch card to receive food once a
month. Other than that, no demonstra-
tion of need is required; food is given in
good faith, she explained.
Garden volunteer coordinator Susan
Randolph showed the visitors how to
plant cucumbers and gave them a tour of
the large community garden, which de-
pends on volunteers from throughout the
community. She stressed that all vegeta-
WHAT’S UP AT
bles are grown organically, with the use
of sustainable soil amendments includ-
ing compost, and no pesticides.
“This is not a new project as there has
been a garden at this location for a num-
ber of years, in past maintained by mem-
bers of the Our Redeemer community,”
Randolph explained. “This year, with this
new (FISH) facility and all this new ca-
pacity, we are ramping up our efforts to
build not just a singular shared commu-
nity garden but make it into a region-
wide volunteer garden, with all food do-
nated to FISH.
“It initially it started in the faith com-
munity, interdenominationally, with a
good group of people from a number of
See FISH, Page B2
G ROWN
Middle School is 5-8 p.m. Thursdays. In a new location this year
is Hood River Saturday Market, at Oak Street Pub parking lot,
ries and green onions from other local
Fourth and Oak streets, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Mercado del Valle re-
growers, are just a few samples of what’s available at Gorge turns on June 20 to Mid Valley Elementary.
Carrots, grown by Ben Saur of Saur Farms, as well as strawber- Grown markets this time of year. Farmers Market at Hood River
Photo by Kirby Neumann-Rea