An able disabled
Perfect Cacho
Perfect Cacho, 48, met an accident in 1985. His right leg had been amputated after being trapped in his seat inside a jeepney rammed by a delivery truck. But being disabled did not stop him from becoming productive.
"I can still walk and I can still talk," he said.
He is currently a village leader in a village in Burgos, San Antonio, Zambales, a province located in the western coast of Luzon. He is a member of the Burgos Bagong Lakas TB Task Force.
In the village under his authority, health had always been his priority.
As a village leader, he is always involved in meetings with older leaders. This is where he learned about World Vision and its Social Mobilization on Tuberculosis (SMT) project.
"I volunteered in the project because I know this will greatly help in improving the health of the people," he said.
During the 3006 World TB Day commemoration in their municipality, Perfecto ignored the dust and the prickly heat of the sun as he actively helped in distributing flyers and comics to people in the streets and in each house he passed by.
Aided with wooden crutches, he easily maneuvered his way to join in the election-style campaign parade conducted by their task force in the community just to be able to give information on TB prevention and control.
"I will continue to be a part of this project as long as I can, as long as I am healthy," he said. "I knew a friend who died because of TB."
Perfect may not be physically perfect with his disability but he is definitely greatly contributing in making his community TB-free.
Since 2003, the SMT project had been mobilizing communities by organizing TB task forces nationwide to assist the National TB Program in increasing the number of TB cases discovered and cured.
World Vision trains TB task forces to identify people with TB symptoms for referral to public healthy facilities, to act as treatment partners to TB patients, to conduct health education in villages, and to implement the Directly Observed Treatment Shortcourse (DOTS). Task forces are also trained to create TB and DOTS awareness in the community to increase demand for DOTS services.
There are 268 TB task forces organized by the project with over one million Filipinos as beneficiaries.