Articles by Real Medicine Foundation Staff

The Real Medicine Foundation is a humanitarian organization with a creative approach. Rather than go in with preconceived answers, we approach each situation by asking, “How can we help?” In this way, we can respond effectively and appropriately with customized services designed to best meet the immediate and long-term needs of the specific individuals and communities we serve. Our global network of “Friends Helping Friends” enables us to directly connect with those in need, carefully access how to make the greatest impact, and cooperatively deliver the highest-quality support. Whether we are providing physical, emotional, social, or economic support, our goal is to empower with real solutions that heal, give hope, and rebuild lives, both now and in the future.

Children’s Club

Providing care and treatment to HIV infected children is a priority for the Lwala Community Health Center and FACES, our partner in providing comprehensive HIV services to the community. HIV positive children often go undetected because parents are reluctant to bring their children in for testing. Using a family centered approach, Lwala’s staff has worked with FACES to counsel, test, and enroll children into care.

The Children’s Club for HIV positive children and families was developed to provide psychosocial support for HIV positive children and their families. One Saturday each month, children and families gather to enjoy games, sports, and educational activities and refreshments. The club’s activities are enriching, provide children with an avenue for self-expression, and promote well being. The monthly meeting provides an opportunity for HIV education and fostering of friendships to reduce stigma in the community. While children enjoy games, skits, story telling, and songs, parents of children meet separately to discuss issues relevant to caring for HIV positive children. Children of HIV positive parents are also invited to be counseled and tested at the Children’s Club. Read more


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Watch the PSA on Youtube

Watch the PSA on Youtube

Dear Friends,

We are excited to announce that we have another PSA that will be running on Hulu.com this time raising awareness for the people of Turkana, Kenya.

The Turkana are an ancient tribal people of Northern Kenya who for generations have lived rural, pastoral lives that rely heavily on the rainy seasons and the 2 rivers that run through their land for water. In this arid region however, water can be very scarce and in 2009 a devastating drought swept across Kenya, killing livestock, crops and children.

Suddenly, families were forced to live off whatever they could find in the wild; children, dressed in little more than a sheet, were forced to walk 20 miles over hot sand for a gallon of water; fathers unable to bare the shame of watching their families perish, simply vanished into the desert.

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Photos by Jonathan White

Visiting RMF programs, Jonathan White, RMF Director of International Relations, has traveled from Uganda to Southern Sudan, completing his marathon 3-week journey across Africa in Nigeria where he met staff and patients at the Gure Model Healthcare Clinic.

Thanks to the success of our 2010 team, we have been invited back as an Official Charity of the LA Marathon 2011.

2011 LA Marathon Details:
Los Angeles Marathon: Sunday, March 20st, 2010
New Performance Nutrition 5K: Saturday, March 19th, 2011

Sign up

Register
*LA Marathon registration begins July 15th but it is never too early to join the team! Help us start the year with a bang by making a fundraisng page now and taking the pledge to register on July 15th!

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http://www.blogcdn.com/www.bvblackspin.com/media/2010/04/women_in_haiti_food_rations.jpg

Audio slideshow: Life in a camp in Haiti

Recorded and photographed by Jake Price. Produced by Jake Price and Phil Coomes (bbc.com)

In January an earthquake in Haiti killed up to 230,000 people and left more than one million homeless.

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Videos on the Real Medicine Website!

In the past few months we have completely redone our website to help streamline existing information and to add new features, such as our new video section.

Now, you can watch videos of all types straight from our website: some that explain our programs in more detail, some that express the needs of different communities, and some that are sent directly from our teams on the ground.

We hope that you enjoy the videos!

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RMF – Organizational Concepts

1. Friends helping Friends
Friends made it possible to start our work in the tsunami relief efforts in Sri Lanka in the beginning of 2005, and this concept is one of our mainstays: we are friends helping friends by creating a global network of friends. This means, i.e. that we take the ethics of being a friend seriously, treating each other with respect and dignity, acknowledging that everyone has something different to contribute to create the big vision, and also that we are one human family and friends are everywhere. It also includes the way we treat the people in need we are supporting, treating them as friends, with the dignity and respect they deserve.

2. Keeping it personal
We know the people we are working with, here in the U.S. and internationally. And we know the children and their families we are supporting. We follow up with updates, photos and reports very frequently. Real Medicine Foundation grows with its members, we grow “from the inside out”; building the structures of our work around people we trust and allowing them to introduce new people they trust. That’s how our global network of “Friends helping Friends” keeps growing.

We also always connect with other established organizations on the ground where we have our projects to make sure our work gets implemented and followed up on. We hire local personnel and work with local volunteers; and have our U.S. team members visit our projects as well to learn about the needs and successes first hand, to train, to supervise and to give support.

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Sunday, June 27, 2010 – 01:00 PM

Tony’s Darts Away 1710 W Magnolia Blvd Burbank CA 91506 USA

$35 per person, all inclusive Purchase Tickets

ALL Proceeds Benefit the Real Medicine: Armenia (watch RMF Video on Armenia)
All funds yielded from this event will directly support Real Medicine Foundation’s Primary Healthcare Project in an Armenian village, providing free healthcare services to a population in need. ANY additional contributions are embraced. Simply donate by clicking here.

Even though there have been some notable economic improvements in Armenia, the country is still facing high inflation and frequent increases in costs for basic products and services. Social polarization reflects a highly uneven distribution of economic growth. Based on the World Bank’s statistics, over half of the population in the country is living under poverty level.

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Proud New Nursing & Midwifery Students and Principal

May 2010

After leaving Uganda, Jonathan heads to Southern Sudan to visit our Nursing & Midwifery College and to meet the new students who have recently begun classes on May 10th, 2010.

Southern Sudan hold ones of the the highest rates of infant and maternal mortality in the world. When Real Medicine landed in the new country to address this issue we realized that, more than anything, they needed trained staff to fill the facilities already in place throughout the country.

This is the first school of it’s kind and marks a decisive step toward curbing the infant and maternal mortality now plaguing Southern Sudan. Once the 3 year course is complete, our select students will go on to staff the now vacant clinics that dot the countryside and become the front line of care for mothers and children in need.

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After the clinic and our support of the Nursery, Primary and Secondary Schools make up the next biggest component of our program in the Kiryandongo Refugee Settlement.  The students we support are mostly Kenyan refugees, but there is also a small group of Sudanese students and one Congolese that receive full support for school fees and supplies as well.

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