Like the past years PPSO-E celebrated Parkinson awareness month by organizing different events.
World Parkinson Month (April) was celebrated by organizing different events. Among these was “”Celebration of World Parkinson month ’’. It was celebrated on April month of each year. April was the birth month of James Parkinson an English Physician who described and wrote about Parkinson Disease.
For Parkinson Patients support organization – Ethiopia April is a special month in which we successfully reached the highest public awareness stage. In this years’ celebration, we managed to conduct two big events.
- Panel discussion for the celebration of World Parkinson month
This event was held on Wabi Shebele Hotel meeting room. More than 60 people attended with a heavy media presence both from print media and FM radio stations.
Facilitation for the panel disecussion was done by Dr.Seid, a known Neurologist and Dean of the Neurology in Addis Ababa University. He led the meeting and translated Amharic to English and vice versa for the benefit of both Amharic and English speakers.
Welcoming speech was done by W/ro Kibra Kebede, the founder of PPSO-E. She explained the achievement so far and the challenges in relation to funding, Donor, transport, professional staff and others. Finally she said the motto of the year is “Be Strong” and explained how the patients should be strong in fighting Parkinson Disease.
The second speaker was Dr. Dereje. Dr Dereje presented what Parkinson is and its management methods.
From the side of care giver, W/t Abonesh emotionally explained how much her mother has suffered by Parkinson and PD affected the family economically as well as socially. She explained how she came to know about her mother’s illness and her role as a caregiver. She told the Participants that she has no money to pay for house rent and that she is keeping her parents around church. She worked in the city and walked long distances to spend the night with her parents.
Ato wondyirad, representing the Parkinson patients and thanked PPSO-E for the help he obtained. He spent the time allocated for him explain the benefit obtained from PPSO-E and the need for fighting back Parkinson.
After a short discussion for ideas and recommendations, the final keynote speaker was Dr. Molla, who is representative for the Ministry of Health, non-communicable diseases department, he acknowledged the work done by PPSO-E and he promised to work very hard and support the organization for government recognition of putting Parkinson disease in the essential disease list.