Meet the Team: Arabella
This week's Featured Staff Member is Arabella, our nutritionist. We asked her a few questions to help you get to know her.
What is your role at Casa Bernabé?
One part of my job is supporting in the clinic. My job is to check the children’s weights and height. I use this information to check if a child’s development is adequate; to see if they are malnourished or are overweight. Most of the children I serve are malnourished.
The second part of my job is to support Families United. My job with them is to help when children are reintegrated with their biological families. The nutrition guidelines that we follow here at Casa Bernabé to best serve our children also apply to kids and families outside of CB as well.
I also help evaluate some of the kids from our school (kids from the local community). I check to see that they have everything they need nutritionally, making sure that their basic needs are met, and also taking into consideration the economic piece as well, which affects many of our families. I help by teaching them about nutrition and what that looks like in their homes. We educate both children, inside of the clinic, and families, outside of the clinic as well.
The final part of my job that we are going to integrate a bit more this year is food service. My role here is to make sure the chefs in the kitchen are using proper hygiene practices when they prepare the food. I also work with the kitchen to create a balanced menu that gives the children and the visiting teams the nutrition that they need.
What evaluations do you do with the kids to determine their nutrition?
We evaluate kids in many different ways. We look at their height and weight currently and their past height and weight and compare that to a growth chart. We also look at how much muscle that they have because this is an important factor in their overall health. We also look at other clinical things like, for example, the color of their hair, how their teeth are doing, their language development, because these “clinical things” give us a good sense of how their nutrition is. I like to evaluate them when they enter by looking at things like if they have dark circles under their eyes or if they are very pale. Many times outward things give us a glimpse into a child’s nutrition.
Why did you want to be a nutritionist?
I decided to be a nutritionist because life is not about whether you are skinny or fat, there is more to the story than that. I really like working with the psychology department when I am talking about nutrition. Your physical health is related to your mental health. So this is how I treat people, with a more holistic approach. I like to help people to have better health and to improve their lives. I also enjoy working with kids, so working at Casa Bernabé was a unique opportunity to work with kids and treat them holistically.
What is your favorite part of your job?
The interaction with the kids and getting to know them, building trust with them. Because at the beginning, they are all serious–they do not want to talk or joke around. As I get to know these kids, I can start to understand their behaviors a little bit better, and I can help support them in different ways because I know them better.
What is the most challenging part about your job?
The need for both adults and children to have a mentality change when it comes to nutrition. You can tell them something but if they don’t change their mentality, if their minds are closed to it, it’s very difficult. I really think that this is very difficult to achieve here in Guatemala.
Tell us about yourself (your interests, about your family, how you spend your free time, etc.)
I really enjoy exercising, cooking, and psychology. In my free time, I really enjoy learning more about psychology. I live with my parents, my brother, and my grandma. My brother is a doctor. He studied sports medicine and I studied sports nutrition. I also have my own clinic/business, and I love to travel and shop.
My three favorite trips have been to London, Italy, and Panama. London was a spectacular trip. It was very beautiful, the people and the place. I had the opportunity to go to Italy on my first solo trip ever. It was a chance to get to know myself, to challenge myself, to find myself, and to learn what I am capable of. I also loved the trip that I took for my fifteenth birthday with my whole family to Panama and the Dominican Republic. We had an amazing time. All of these trips were important markers in my life. And next I would love to go to Turkey and India to visit the Taj Mahal. I want to visit the Taj Mahal because I love learning about its history. And I want to visit Turkey because it is a country with a rich culture and I love learning about cultural clothing.
How can we pray for you?
To have the strength and grace to work with the kids and with Families United. In everything that we have going on here at Casa Bernabé, the truth is that prayers are always appreciated, in whatever form.