– During the first semester of this year, the service focused on prevention and early detection, providing free services to the educational community.

Thanks to the joint initiative that Blumar and Universidad San Sebastián (USS) are developing, they have been providing free medical services to the community of San Vicente de Talcahuano for more than 1 year. The project, called “Speech Therapy and Blumar, at the Service of the Community”, has also made it possible to serve dozens of children, parents and teachers.

 “Professionals from Universidad San Sebastián and dozens of students have supported us for more than 1 year in this project, which seeks to bring Blumar and the university closer in a different way, in which we could contribute to the health of our neighbors and, and specially of a particular, an emblematic educational community of the commune. This seeks to contribute to their quality of life,” said Blumar Fishing Operations Manager, José Ocares. 

Thus, during the first semester of the year, more than 75 students from pre-kindergarten to 8th grade, 28 teachers and 25 parents from Colegio San Vicente de Talcahuano have been contacted. In pre-kindergarten, kindergarten and 1st grade, an we carry out a profile evaluation  to identify possible developmental gaps. 

“It is essential to make early detection, since all alterations that are detected early can have an early approach and this minimizes the impact of a possible neurodevelopmental alteration. For this reason, we focus on prevention,” explained the coordinator of the children’s and youth area of ​​the university’s Speech Therapy program, Lina Rodríguez.

 On the other hand, a vocal management workshop was held for teachers, and a workshop is also being developed so that they can detect neurodevelopmental disorders, focused on language development disorders and autism spectrum disorder.

The project began last year with speech therapy actions, and for the second half of this year dentistry and nutrition will be included. “We seek to offer health services to work on actions to promote and prevent healthy habits, which is why the careers of Speech Therapy, Nutrition and Dentistry are linked. These provide the evaluation service to make early detections, and provide workshops that allow the installation of healthy skills and habits in the educational community,” Rodríguez said.