Your Thumbs Up Can Make all the Difference

This post is a little different than my usual, but it concerns a topic that is near and dear to my heart - namely, speech therapy programs in low and middle-income countries around the world.  I have a wonderful project to tell you about that you can help make a reality just by voting for it.

As many of you know my friend Kim and I went to Bangladesh in the summer of 2011 to teach Bangladeshi speech therapy students (yep, that's us in the photo above in all our sweaty tired glory on our last day in Bangladesh).  It was an amazing experience and opened our eyes to some of the difficulties of training speech therapists in poorer countries.  

Kim is one of those people who not only has great ideas, but gets things done and she has come up with a fantastic way to help improve the quality of speech therapy programs in low and middle-income countries around the world.  To help fund the project, she has applied for a grant through Grand Challenges Canada.  The grant would be used to develop computer-based learning modules to teach speech and language courses in developing countries.

At the present time these programs rely on foreign volunteers, such as Kim and myself, to do the teaching.  You can imagine that there are problems with this approach because it is difficult to ensure a steady stream of reliable, knowledgeable volunteers just when they are needed for the program, not to mention that the quality of teaching varies significantly.  

Using computer-based teaching modules would mean better and more consistent course content.  There would be other benefits as well, such as being able to include video demonstrations, explanations of technical vocabulary, and even the ability for the students to re-watch the lessons as needed.  These advantages would in turn mean better trained speech therapists.  

The computer-based learning modules could then be used around the world in any developing speech therapy program.  Interest has already been expressed by programs in Thailand, Ethiopia, and of course, Bangladesh.

Centre for Rehabilitation of the Paralysed (CRP) where we taught in Bangladesh

The grant application is accompanied by a video which you can watch on the website here.  For the next two months people are able to endorse particular projects by giving them a virtual thumbs up.  At the end of June, the committee looks at the applications and makes a decision as to who will get the funding.  Obviously the grant is not based solely on the voting, but we want to impress the panel by having a huge number of thumbs up, which is where you can help.

We would love to have you give this project a thumbs up after watching the video.  You do not need to log-in or sign up for anything, but just complete a captcha number to prove you aren't a robot.   Also you can vote every day which would really help the cause.  I try to remember to vote from both home and work to increase the numbers.  Also don't forget to pass this info along to any family or friends that could be willing to support the cause too. 

Please let me know in the comments if you have voted. This project means a lot to us and we appreciate you taking the time to give it a thumbs up.  

Me teaching the third year Speech Therapy class in Bangladesh

Kim teaching the third year class to do examinations of the oral structure and movements
(she's a blur due to the low lighting and the fact that she never stops moving) 

And just in case you are interested to learn more about my experiences when I was in Bangladesh, I have included some links.  You can read more about the teaching I did here and about my time in Bangladesh here, here, here, here, and here.

PS,  The first three photos in the video were taken by me in Bangladesh

PPS,   Just so you can find the link more easily for voting - click here.

Thoughts on Bangladesh

Brick walkway at the Centre for Rehabilitation of the Paralysed

As many of you know my friend Kim and I taught in Bangladesh during the summer of 2011.  It was an amazing experience and one that we hope to repeat again in the next few years (you can read more of my posts about Bangladesh here)

You remember how we are cooking our way around the world well the next one I should be posting about is Bangladesh, but the truth is I feel funny writing about the aloo chop I cooked when there are other much more pressing things to discuss about Bangladesh. 

Things like the building that collapsed in Bangladesh last month killing over 1000 people.  The building, Rana Plaza, was in Savar a town northwest of the capital Dhaka. The Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Paralysed (CRP) where we taught is less than two kilometres away from the collapsed building.  We went to the Rana Plaza on our first day in Bangladesh to withdraw money from the bank machine and then went to a building across the street and past the underpass to purchase material for our salwar kameezes and scarves. The people who worked in the garment factories and in the shops who were trapped, injured, and the families of those who have died are on my mind.

Did you know that two babies have been born to women trapped in the rubble.  Can you imagine how terrifying that would be?

Did you know that one woman was found after seventeen days of being trapped in the debris.  Can you imagine how terrifying that would be?

There has been a lot of talk about reform of the garment industry and to that I say hear! hear!   I have been relieved to know that not only has Joe Fresh, the Canadian clothing company associated with Loblaw, admitted they were subcontracting with one of the garment factories in the Rana Plaza while most other clothing manufacturers have not, but they also are working toward better monitoring of the factory working conditions.  

I worry about the backlash this type of accident will have on consumers. Will they want to boycott clothing made in third world countries? Possibly, but is that the answer when the jobs are very much needed.  Can you imagine what would happen to the economy of an already fragile country, if all the garment factories closed. I think about the people who make the clothing I purchase and hope that they were fairly treated, at the same time knowing they were likely underpaid and likely working in crowded unsafe conditions. Unfortunately we are left without many options. Several of the news reports I listened to claimed that adding only a few dollars to the price of the garments we buy would entirely change the working conditions and wages if that money went directly to solving the problems.  Who wouldn't happily pay a little bit more to know that the garments were made in fair working conditions (like fair trade coffee). The problem of how to help the people working in the garment factories is on my mind.

The Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Paralysed has been helping with the rehabilitation of many of those injured in the collapse of the building (you can read more about it in this article put out by the World Health Organization).  Helping people with spinal cord and limb injuries is one of the things that CRP specializes in.  The rehabilitation of those injured in the accident has been on my mind.

Savar City Centre

Photo taken by me on the overpass in Savar

Collapsed building in Savar just down the street from the above photo (source)

Bangladesh is one of those places that elicit a complete range of emotions - it did when we were there and a tragic accident like the recent one brings all that to the fore again.  It seems so frivolous to talk about the Bangladeshi food I cooked after such a sobering topic, but nevertheless I wanted to share with you one of the the things we really enjoyed when we were in Bangladesh.   

Our favourite food in Bangladesh was aloo chop, which you can see in the photos below.  You can admire how they are supposed to look because as you will soon see mine didn't look quite as good.

The lovely woman who cooked our meals and helped us whenever we needed anything (like giant spiders being removed from our washroom)

I thought I would give making aloo chop a try when we got to Bangladesh in our world cooking.  Unfortunately they didn't work out as well as the original ones did.  You can see how difficult they were to make in the photo below.  I basically made a thick mashed potato, formed it into a cup shape, and filled it with a seasoned egg mixture.  I then added a bit more mashed potato to close the top.  It was easier said than done though as it was difficult to seal the egg inside the mashed potato. I then rolled the balls in bread crumbs and fried them in a pan to brown the outsides.

I'm not going to include a recipe as they were not the best things I've made.  I think the originals were fried in more oil than I used, which might have given them that nice even brownness.

I guess we will just have to go back to Bangladesh and taste some of the real ones.  

Favourite Souvenir - My Jolly-Minded Truck

I'm joining Kate for the ‘Favorite Souvenir’ link party she is having over at Centsational Girl.  I'm looking forward to seeing all the weird and wonderful things people have brought home from their travels.  


I love to travel and try to go somewhere new every year even if it is just visiting a new town close to home.  One of the biggest trips I've taken was last summer when I went with a friend to Bangladesh for a month to teach in the Speech Therapy Department (you can read more about it here, here, here, here, here, and here).  We left ten months ago this month so this is a great opportunity to reminisce.
I had never been to southeast Asia before and wasn't sure what to expect, but it far exceeded my expectations in all aspects - it was definitely noisier and wilder then I had thought, but also more vibrant and colourful than I had thought it would be.  
One of my favourite things in Bangladesh were all the colourful trucks.  

When I think of transport trucks and dump trucks here in North America they are all painted with just one or two colours and have the name of the company on them.  Not in Bangladesh.  There the drivers spend a lot of time and energy decorating their trucks with all kinds of pictures taken from nature and religious scenes.  There are birds and houses and lakes and flowers painted all over the trucks and all done in bright primary colours.  It wasn't just the occasional truck that was like this either, they all were.

When we were in Dhaka and visited Aarong the fair trade organization that carries many souvenirs and crafts, I bought this little wooden truck that holds a special place in my heart.

One of our students in Bangladesh described someone as being jolly-minded meaning they were happy and that is definitely a term I would use to describe this truck - a jolly-minded truck!

My jolly-minded truck is often on our kitchen shelves adding a colourful reminder of the adventures we had in Bangladesh.

Linked to Favourite Souvenirs Party at Centsational Girl

My New Easter Tablecloth

When my friend Kim and I were in Bangladesh last summer a friend gave us something that is called a three-piece.  It is three pieces of material that coordinate either in colour or pattern or both and you take it to the tailor to be made into a salwar kameez (like what Kim and I are wearing in the photo below).   

While we appreciated the generosity, there were two problems with the gift.  First, we didn't need any more salwar kameezes and second, the material was bright pink with embroidery on it.  Between you and me, we just weren't into wearing bright pink embroidered clothing from head to toe.  Fortunately Kim got the idea that we could make the material into Easter tablecloths. It was an inspired idea as now we had some way to use the gift and we would have a touch of Bangladesh on our Easter tables.  

So the other day I got the material out and lay it on the floor since it had now been eight  months since I had last seen it.  One piece had an all-over pattern (on the left in the photo below), one piece had a border of embroidery with scattered pieces down the middle (on the right), and one piece was plain (the folded piece lying in the middle).  I'm assuming the plain one is made into the pants, the all-over patterned one is for the tunic, and the one with a border is the scarf, but I'm not entirely sure.

Initially I was going to make a tablecloth by putting the piece with an all-over pattern down the middle and cutting the piece of material with a border in half lengthwise and sewing it down either side.  My husband suggested that I just use the piece with the all-over print and layer it over a white tablecloth to break up all that pink.  It was a brilliant idea and it looked great.  I decided to use fusible webbing instead of sewing as I didn't want to have seams showing along the bottom edge.  Once I had it all ironed I put it on the table to try it out along with one of the plates that we like to use for special occasions and that just happens to have pink flowers.

Don't they look like they were made for each other - dishes meet tablecloth, tablecloth meet dishes.

I bought this leaf-shaped bowl in Bangladesh as well, with the express purpose of using it to display our Easter eggs.   I'm going to put the Easter eggs in the middle of the table so I had to try them out too.  

I think it is all coming together.  Now we just need something to eat.

Linked to the Bunny Blog Hop At the Picket Fence,
and Wow us Wednesday at Savvy Southern Style

Bangladesh CRP Speech Project Details

Before I leave the topic of Bangladesh I thought some of you might be interested to know a bit more about what my friend Kim and I did when we were at the Centre for the Rehabilitation of the Paralysed (CRP) in Savar.   We were there for 4 1/2 weeks and in that time we packed in a lot of different projects.  Before we left home we knew what courses we would be teaching, but apart from that we had no idea of how else we could help, so the other projects we undertook were ones we identified after we arrived. 


Kim taught a course in Adult Neurogenics (speech problems resulting from stroke, Parkinson's disease, and the like). I taught a course in Autism and Developmental Delays and half of the Introduction to Speech Therapy course.  While it might appear that I did more work than Kim, her course was 18 lecture hours a week and my courses  totaled 16 lecture hours a week.  We taught in English (obviously, since our Bangla isn't too hot), which did cause some difficulties, but not insurmountable ones.  We had to remember to speak slowly, and often we had to repeat information, and use lots of examples.   

Teaching the Autism and Developmental Delay course to third year students

My first year students outside our classroom

One of the projects I was most excited about was the photo therapy cards I had my first year class make.  When we got to Bangladesh we found that the clinic had very few pictures for use in therapy. Here was an opportunity  to make culturally relevant materials for instructional use. Kim and I had taken two point-and-shoot cameras with us to donate to the department so I had them available for my first year class to use to take photos of each other.  I gave my class a half-hour talk about how to take good photographs and then I divided them into five groups. They took pictures that illustrated common verbs, common prepositions (location words), and common objects.  In order to get all the photos, some groups went out to the shops and around CRP to take pictures.

Taking pictures to make therapy cards. Foreground: taking pictures of "playing".
Background: setting up pictures for "washing"

The first two groups took pictures of twenty common verbs, like "playing", "jumping", "running", and "shopping".  We wanted them to be able to use the cards to make a variety of sentences, so they photographed each verb being done by a male student, a female student, and a group of students.  You can see one of the series in the photos below:

Picture series to show "They are shopping", "She is shopping", and "He is shopping"

Another group took pictures of five common verbs, each with three different objects, so that they could use the photographs to extend sentences; for example: "eating biscuits", "eating rice", and "eating an apple".  When it came to photographing "eating" and "drinking" the students were good sports. As it was Ramadan and the students were fasting they could only  put the food and drink near their mouths. I felt bad to have them so near refreshment when they must have been pining for a bite to eat or to take a sip, but there was no other time we could do this project, so my brave students soldiered on.

Pictures to show "He is washing clothes", "She is washing dishes", and "She is washing her face"

Another group took photos of prepositions.  One of my favourites was this series of photos taken around a rickshaw.  

Photos to show "behind", "in", "in front of", "on", "beside", and "under"

The fifth group took photos of thirty common objects.  These were for use by people who are unable to talk because of a stroke or some other problem and could use the pictures to request things.  Below are a few of the objects that are somewhat unique to Bangladesh.

Left to right:
Lunghi (wrap worn by men); salwar kameez (worn by women); mosquito net; wheelchair (made at CRP)

We had the photos printed in duplicate so that the cards could be used for matching or playing memory games.  We also had the cards laminated so they would last.  Finally, I put the photos on an external hard-drive so that if they get spoiled they can be reprinted. Therapists might also want to make a communication board for a patient from these files, or they might wish to extend the collection.

Therapy photo cards, in duplicate and laminated - ready for use!

I have to tell you about one of the funny moments that occurred while we were working on this project. During the "washing" series, I asked the students where they wash dishes. "In a basin, Ma'am".  So a basin it was.  Then I asked if they also wash clothes in a basin. "No Ma'am". Do you use a sink, I asked. But this was not correct either.  Where do you wash clothes, I asked. "In the "toilet"!  Fortunately one of the students added, "On the floor in the toilet".  So off the group went to find a toilet so they could take pictures of clothes washing.  When they came back and I looked at the photos, I noticed they had washed the blue dish cloth Kim and I used in our kitchen (see the photo above)!  YUCK, YUCK AND TRIPLE YUCK. Dish cloths being in short supply, I boiled it for five minutes before we used it again.

Another project we did at CRP was to develop a stroke patient language-skills screening test, which Kim had her third students produce, in Bangla. Now CRP has a complete aphasia screening test, ready for use by future instructors and students (the white binder in the photo above).


Thanks for your patience in reading about these projects. Just one more! I had my first year students collect magazine pictures - which they did in abundance.  Then Kim organized them into three binders: one for pictures that show emotions; one for pictures that show actions; and one for pictures that tell a story (the blue binders in the photo above).  Not only was this a low-cost way to obtain therapy materials, but the pictures are all culturally-relevant since they show people from Bangladesh.

Kim and I displaying the magazine picture binders to the students

Maybe shopping is more in the category of "fun" than "project", but in any case Kim and I went on a buying spree for the department, for children's books, toys, and magazine file boxes to organize the tests.

Shopping for children's books and anatomy charts for the walls in the clinic

In Dhaka we purchased a series of books made in Bangladesh that illustrate common vocabulary items.  The books were only a couple of dollars each so we bought three copies of each - one to keep whole and two to cut up to make vocabulary items that can be matched and sorted.  You can see the books in the next photo in their plastic pouches:

Kim and I and some interns and fourth year students admire the materials we bought in Dhaka or brought over with us 

Kim used the magazine file boxes to organize the tests

And finally, on the last day, Kim and I held a therapy materials demonstration to show the students how to use the photos, magazine pictures, aphasia screening test, books, and toys.  My mantra was that I wanted them to make therapy fun so that their patients would want to "learn and return".

Using the toy cars and trucks Kim and I bought (and the cardboard garage we made) to work on prepositions

There is lots more that can be done to get the CRP Speech Language Department at Savar  fully equipped. But happily Kim and I managed to complete all the projects we identified as ones we had the skills, time, and money to accomplish.