Kiwi Heroes - Biographies
The Centre has a staff of approx 80 - Edric is the only one with any formal medical qualifications. Everyone else at Kailakuri has been trained on the job. Most of the staff have been to primary school and about half have been to high school.
Currently the Centre is providing health services annually to
- 17,000 poor out patients
- Very ill inpatients — 11,000 bed nights
- 1,020 diabetics
- 88 tuberculosis sufferers
- 700 pregnant and young mothers in 15 villages
Edric's enthusiasm and energy has brought together people of different ethnicity and faith - Bengali Muslim, Mandi Christian, Borman Hindu. They all work harmoniously together for the good of their community, providing health services for the poor, by the poor.
Find out more
- Visit the website http://sites.google.com/site/kailakurihealth/Home
- Listen to Dr Baker being interviewed on National radio here
- Read a diary exerpt from Lindsay Crocker, Manager of the Black Caps cricket team
Shimshal is a small farming and herding community situated in the Northern Areas of Pakistan, near the border with China. Its elevation is 3008 metres above sea level and it has a cold ‘desert’ climate with very little precipitation.
The Shimshali are Ismaili Muslims who eat what they grow, largely hardy cereals (wheat and barley) and potatoes. They complement this with extensive herding of sheep, goats, cattle and yaks.
Until recently the village was only accessible on foot but in 2002 a road was completed through the narrow, steep gorge connecting the village with the Karakoram Highway. This has resulted in a more varied economy and a better standard of living.
The Shimshal Trust funds scholarships to help students with financial need and promising ability attend high school or university. Some of the scholarships are reserved for teachers so that they can improve their qualifications, return to the village and thus lift the general quality of education in the local school.
You can contact The Shimshal Trust via www.shimshaltrust.org.nz.
For around 7 - 10 days annually in the Philippines, along with year round fundraising, planning, administration and background work, these volunteers work to achieve the charity's goal to enable all children to start school with a smile.
Operation Restore Hope operates in one of Manila's poorest neighbourhoods, Caloocan, where 37% of the population live in dire poverty.
Cleft lip and palate deformities are comparatively prevalent in the Philippines with nearly 200,000 Filipinos estimated to be awaiting surgery for their deformity. This unusually high number is due to the high proportion of Filipinos carrying the gene which causes the deformity. Less mobility amongst the less fortunate allows the gene to flourish. Malnutrition in pregnant mothers increases the extent of the deformity.
There are simply just not enough trained surgeons in the Philippines to deal with the caseload. Without access to the free surgery provided through Operation Restore Hope, operative repair is unlikely for many.
A cleft lip and/or palate denies a child normal speech and appearance. These children are relegated to a lowly, impoverished life where they are likely to be denied the simplest privileges such as schooling, social contact and eventual employment to due to their deformity. Surgery gives these children the ability to communicate, through speech and something as simple as a smile.
Whilst Operation Restore Hope's purpose is to correct deformities for those who without the donation of services would remain untreated, they are also very committed to the training of Filipino Surgeons and Anaesthetists. Intensive training during the annual missions ensures that local staff can then carry on working with the patients, performing highly skilled surgery and achieving on their own what this charity has always set out to achieve.
Operation Restore Hope NZ is always looking for surgical, anaesthetic and nursing volunteers, assistance with travel needs and donations of supplies and equipment. If you would like to find out more or enquire as to how you can help, please contact them via www.operationrestorehope.org.
The Gilgit Eye Hospital in mountainous Northern Areas of Pakistan was
opened in 1995 by Vision International Pakistan. The hospital has an
established reputation for quality eye care and excellence of service
from its eye hospital, blind school & community rehabilitation program.
Scott Dumbletons involvement first started in 1997 when as a newly graduated optometrist he visited the hospital. Tracey first met Scott in 1999 when she was backpacking through Pakistan, she is an ophthalmic nurse. Scott was appointed project director of the hospital in 2006 which has expanded his role to deal with the administration of running the hospital and fundraising. Scott also works in the clinic seeing patients and training local staff. Tracey works with the operation theatre team maintaining and improving the surgical department, staff training and assisting with operations.
The most a patient would pay for a cataract operation is about 4,500 rupees ($110 NZ) if they can afford it. If they are genuinely poor and cannot afford surgery or medicine costs the local staff assess their situation and give a reduction of fees according to what they can afford; if they are in absolute poverty, it's done for free, if it is relative poverty then somewhere in the middle. This compares to $400+ NZ if they take the 20 hour bus ride down to Rawalpindi.
Local GP's and village health workers from all over northern Pakistan refer patients for treatment, patients often traveling considerable distance. It deals with all the extremes in eye disease - with trauma, infections, cataracts, allergies and refractive eye sight problems. Surgeries are predominantly cataract and its other surgical procedures are trauma (emergencies), glaucoma pressure reducing procedures, trachoma related eyelid surgery and blocked tear duct reconstruction surgeries (DCR's).
The hospital has a dedicated team of almost 30 local staff, highly motivated and well trained. During 2006 the team examined over 8000 patients in clinics and performed 857 surgeries. Baring any sectarian unrest/violence 2007 should see a further improvement on clinic/surgery figures. None of the expatriate staff associated with the hospital receive any financial income or allowance from the hospital. The major donors are the Christian Blind Mission and Earth Mission, a US-based charitable organisation.
In 1999 Rachel formed Living Hope - the Vladivostok Homeless Children's Rehabilitation Society. Through Living Hope, children are fed, clothed, encouraged, educated and given the ability to see their potential. Facilities and funds are scarce. Yet Living Hope's Day Centre, mobile soup kitchen and holiday camps are making a huge difference. More lately Living Hope has been focussed on the establishment of a 24-hour Youth Centre.
From the intraocular lens laboratories that Ray has built in Eritrea and Nepal as part of his work with the Fred Hollows Foundation, to organising equipment and trained personnel for the Bhaktapur cancer hospital in Nepal, to new technologies for applying aids treatments and intravenous drips in Africa, Ray has a plethora of projects underway to realise his dream.
His virtual organisation of scientists, financiers and medicos reaches from his base in Mt Eden across the First World and into the Third as this Kiwi Hero, inspires us all to get together to make the difference.
Mondiale is at http://www.medicinemondiale.org/Home.
For more info see http://www.orphanvoice.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=20&Itemid=108.
Latest photos here
February 2007
In just 15 months Mary raised the necessary $75,000 for the orus through fund-raising dinners and speeches around New Zealand. Her next step, "Project Ice" is raising funds to build a $115,000 ice plant that will enable the fishermen to store their fish without spoilage. Mary's "Project Tuk Tuk" has raised $30,000 for a fleet of 3-wheeler refrigerated vehicles to take the fish to market. This 3 step programme will enable this isolated fishing community to once again be self sufficient. You can bet Mary will then look to replicate this success amongst other tsunami-struck villages.
For more info see www.foodmatters.co.nz.
With the support of her community in North Canterbury, Lois filled a container with donated goods — a tractor, plough, harrows, windmill and irrigation piping, mosquito netting, sewing machines, an incubator for premature babies, wheelchairs, reading glasses, books, clothes, toys etc. Three Cantabrians have travelled to Kenya to make sure the container has safe passage, and to help set up the windmill and irrigation system.
Kenya ranks among the thirty poorest nations of the world, with fifty-six percent of Kenyans living below the poverty line. More than two million out of a population of 32.4 million are HIV positive, with 150,000 dying annually due to AIDS. Roughly one million children have also been orphaned by AIDS.
New Zealanders have a particular contribution to make improving the lives of others. We grow up in an environment that not many of the world's people have the privilege to share and from that advantage we have developed a set of skills, social and political values that can be used to make a difference elsewhere.
The UNICEF CF is a New Zealand initiative to channel that contribution on an ongoing basis to the corners of the world where we can make the most positive impact.
We call it a Kiwi Hero because it is an initiative that utilises a well-established infrastructure — UNICEF's global network — to make Kiwi's contributions to help the disadvantaged, more effective.
UNICEF campaigns with and for the world's children to meet their basic needs and to expand their opportunities, enabling them to reach their full potential, irrespective of nationality, religion, politics or ethnicity. UNICEF brings its influence to bear on the individuals and institutions that serve the youngest generation.
Tony Ryan (agricultural consultant) and Derek Kirke (sheep farmer) have volunteered to return to Kyrgyzstan and continue the work they started in 2005 for a NZAID-funded development programme. The 4 Lincoln Universtity Old Boys who are the trustees of the Kyrgyz-NZ Rural Trust are passionate about trying to keep the project growing, and to build on their success and their volunteering will we're sure make a world of difference to the folks at Naryn.
They have demonstrated they can teach Kyrgyz farmers how to improve livestock production, control diseases such as brucellosis and hydatids, and add value to existing products, thereby increasing family incomes. They also have shown groups of rural women how to generate income by establishing sewing and spinning groups. This knowledge creates employment opportunities and motivates communities to work together breaking the poverty cycle.
The Kyrgyzstan New Zealand Rural Trust website link is here.
Off road motorcycle adventures have taken Geoff and Martin Collins to some of the more remote parts of Laos, a landlocked country in South East Asia. The Mekong River forms a large part of the western border with Thailand, and it was a trip along the Mekong that first brought the Collins brothers in contact with school children from Ban Hatteu village.
Ban Hatteu is situated on the banks of the river. It is very isolated - there is no road access, no cars, phones or electricity. Families are extremely poor; they survive by trading fish, crops and hand woven cloth. Geoff and Martin were appalled at the condition of the village school. They decided the best way they could help to break the poverty cycle was by improving the standard of education at the school. They initially supplied pens and paper and textbooks, then desks and chairs (click on the link below to see them being delivered), and finally materials for the villagers to build a new school.
The school is up and running - word has spread along the river, and 3 more villages have approached Geoff and Martin, hoping the process can be repeated for them. The next school to be built will be at Bad Lad Khammune.