Photo By Staff Sgt. Tackora Farrington | Medical professionals from the Niger Armed Forces observe training simulations at the...... read more read more
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CAMP ATTERBURY, Ind.—Three medical professionals from the Niger Armed Forces joined Indiana Army and Air National Guard medical professionals at Camp Atterbury during a state partnership exchange in July.
The weeklong training focused on public health, mental health, basic sanitary needs, and additional topics that increase the overall health of any army.
“This visit has been very beneficial,” said Doctor Colonel Major Garba Hakimi, Director of army health services and social action. “It has given us an opportunity to share experiences and learn things that we can take back to our army, more specifically in the way we organize a patient during ground transportation.”
Hakimi also said that observing the international teams during patient transport training, we conducted allowed him to gain valuable information to take back to their force and implement it with their trainers.
The mutually beneficial exchange took extensive international time, coordination, and planning to coordinate appropriate and applicable training.
“During my public health brief, it was evident that there are some very real and direct impacts from the work done here,” said Indiana Air National Guard Lt. Col. John Shepherd state public health officer from the 181 Intelligence Wing “During the brief it was clear that they were receiving the information and actively identifying how they could implement some of the topics to their developing doctrine.”
Niger leaders said their army is projected to more than double in size relatively quickly making public health a hot topic. Another topic heavily focused on during this exchange was mental health and resiliency training.
Hakimi found mental health and resilience training particularly interesting.
“These topics aren’t very developed in our army,” said Hakimi. “Resilience training is a something we would like to further develop in our army, they gave us good information to do just that.”
This exchange would not have been possible without one specifically dedicated member who had the privilege of feeling a little closer to home during her mission.
“Overall, I’m very thankful for the experience supporting this mission,” said Sgt. Desiree Demercedes the exchange translator and member of the38th Sustainment Brigade. “It’s not very often I get to engage in my native language, and it made me feel like I was back home.”
Demercede was born and raised in Switzerland until she was a teenager when her family migrated to the United States. She currently resides in Danville.
Demercade is just one example of how our diverse force of Indiana Guardsmen live, work, and serve here and around the globe.
“It takes a lot of diverse talent and dedication to develop and implement an information exchange like this successful event,” said Brig. Gen. Justin Mann, director of the Indiana National Guard Joint Staff. “We have the right people in the right places and will continue to work hard to develop our relationship with our Niger partners.”
A safe, stable, secure, and prosperous Africa is an enduring United States’ interest. The Indiana National Guard signed another State Partnership Program agreement with Niger in 2017 and has a 20-plus year partnership with Slovakia.
| Date Taken: | 09.08.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 09.08.2022 10:36 |
| Story ID: | 428809 |
| Location: | INDIANA, US |
| Web Views: | 231 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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