On the 17th of December, our clinic staff in Peru, celebrated with an early Christmas party with some of the children and former patients of our clinic. Thanks to the the contribution of friends and family, the party was held with gifts, food, and a musical clown show for the children.
This year the party was held at one of the local municipality community centers, and we were able to provide a total of 110 gifts for the children. 90 of these gifts were handed out to the children at the party and the remaining 20 were given at a seperate gathering for children who are patients of ours with TB (Tuberculosis) and Malnourishment in another special meeting for them.
Thank you to David Franco, who also collaborated with us, brought gifts and also a basket of food,which draw in the audience.
Photo: Dr. Martina C. Fuchs, RMF Founder/CEO, making new friends at the Lwala, Kenya Community Hospital, October 1, 2011
We are so grateful to all our friends, supporters and teams around the world and wish everyone a fantastic 2012!
Having wrapped up another successful we want to pause and say a huge THANK YOU to all of you who supported our work in 2011. You have helped us achieve so much, and we give our deep thanks to everyone for your generosity and support!
In 2011 we..
In Japan, post-earthquake and tsunami, RMF reached over 33,000 people in Ishinomaki City with supplies, debris/sludge cleanup, and community center support.
In India, in RMF’s Malnutrition Eradication Program, our field staff of 75 Community Nutrition Educators diagnosed and treated 85,016 cases of Acute Malnutrition in more than 600 villages since our program started in 2010.
In South Sudan, 40 Nurses and Midwives at the RMF sponsored first-ever accredited Nursing and Midwifery College in Juba, are beginning their 2nd year of training.
In Haiti, our free clinic at Hôpital Lambert Santé provided public access to 24-hour emergency and general healthcare to a community that is home to more than 100,000 displaced persons.
In Kenya, we upgraded the only hospital for 1,000,000 people in Lodwar, Turkana, starting with the pediatric ward and also continued to provide medical support, food and water to thousands through mobile and stationary clinics in the poorest and most drought ravaged regions in Kenya.
Closer to home, in South Los Angeles, RMF provided 70 children with new backpacks filled with school supplies and personal products, and just threw a Holiday Party for these children on December 17th.
From all of us at RMF: Have a Happy, Healthy and Prosperous 2012!
By Michael Matheke-Fischer, Director of Programs, RMF India
Sunday, November 20, 2011 was the first time I met Sonu. To me, he was a picture on a PowerPoint presentation, a picture that continues to shock me today. Sonu came into our program 15 months ago while I was in Delhi working on streamlining our administrative procedures and, more importantly, trying to raise more funds to help children like him. Fundraising and administrative work, while just as vital as the field work we engage in, is an ever present necessity shared by our small, but dedicated team.
Caitlin McQuilling told me about a case that had shocked even her. While sitting in Delhi, it was hard to hear the emotion in her voice. Days were spent monitoring his progress, coordinating with doctors, and attempting to diagnose exactly what was causing his dramatic wasting. All of this was terribly frustrating while sitting in meetings and pouring over budgets.
The team watched Sonu finally begin to improve, his weight gaining dramatically over three months until he was a healthy, even hefty, child.
Stories of Sonu floated around our house in Jhabua, and his example served as an inspiration to all of us to work harder, reach more children, and find out what we are capable of.
On Sunday, I met a child who could not possibly be the picture I had seen and shown so many times. There was no way, simply none, that such a child could have ever been as wasted and close to death as the picture I was so familiar with. Now back in the field, Sonu has turned in my mind from a stark example of the ravages of malnutrition to a child with a future, a face with expressions, and an energy that I will feed off of for the months to come. His sisters have taken to calling him “motapet” which in Hindi roughly means fat belly.
Even though budgets, PowerPoint’s, reports, and fundraising are still a large part of my job, at least now I have yet another example of why I do it!
For more information about RMF’s Malnutrition Eradication Program in India, click here
We can use any financial help you are able to provide on this project to continue our Education,Treatment and Outreach and help toward our goal of Malnutrition Eradication in this region of India.
To contribute to this initiative, please click Donate button or visit our website at realmedicinefoundation.org
In recognition of our organization’s Malnutrition Eradication Project in India, we have been nominated as a “Charity of the Year” for the CLASSY Awards, sponsored by StayClassy organization. We need your help to vote for our organization so that we can progress from the list of 25 finalists to the final 10!
To vote for us, please visit this webpage: http://classyawards.stayclassy.org/classy-awards/voting , click on “Charity of the Year” and scroll down until you see Real Medicine Foundation and click on the “Vote” button. It also allows you to vote for charities in other categories as part of your ballot if you would like.
The CLASSY Awards is the largest philanthropic awards ceremony in the country, recognizing the most outstanding philanthropic achievements by charities, businesses and individuals nationwide. StayClassy has published each nomination as it’s own article on the CLASSY Awards Achievement Blog to put a national spotlight on these amazing stories of achievement. Starting July 25th, America will vote for one winner in each of the 12 categories. The winners will be announced live during a Hollywood-esque award ceremony in San Diego, CA, similar in style to the Academy Awards, but philanthropy-inspired.
For more information about our Malnutrition Eradication Project and the video that we submitted as part of our award nomination, watch on YouTube here .
Voting lasts until August 25th, so please help us spread the word!
Our partner’s in Japan, JEN (Japanese Emergency NGO), have achieved the following since partnering with RMF:
Approximately 150,000 people were reached
Primary beneficiaries: Evacuees at shelters in Ishinomaki City and evacuees located in their own house without food stocks, and elderly persons at nursery houses.
Activities:
Material Distribution:
Food and non-food items such as fuel, clothing, blankets, and hygiene products were delivered to evacuation centers and homes for the elderly, i.e. 1,000 kilos of rice and 4,000 liters of kerosene.
Sludge Removal Tools and Volunteer Dispatch:
Supported by many volunteers, JEN has been helping remove rubble and sludge from the houses in the Watanoha area, where most houses and buildings are still covered with mud brought by the tsunami. 1,000 sludge removal tool kits were also distributed to local community centers.
Soup Kitchen Volunteer Dispatch:
An initial soup kitchen service was provided at Takasago Junior High School, an evacuation centre in Sendai City. In Ishinomaki City, soup kitchen services provide 100 meals for lunch and 50 for dinner daily.
Planned Future Activities:
Temporary Shelter Project:
Importing trailer homes from Europe and using them as temporary shelters for those who lost houses, until the government prepares permanent houses. Usually, such temporary shelter construction is done by the government; the number required at this time is too high for the government alone to handle.
Rubble Clearance by Local Companies as Revival of Local Business:
There are huge piles of rubble in the affected areas and clearance work has started. Heavy-duty trucks have been rented to participate in the work so companies can resume their business and keep the employees who are about to lose their jobs.
Community Kitchen for Psycho-Social Care of Evacuees:
JEN will establish a few community kitchens where evacuees cook together every day. Through working together and talking about their Tsunami experience over cooking, the aim is to help reduce evacuees’ stress and share a strong tie among them.
We are continuing to raise funding for JEN’s relief efforts and we currently have two matching donation challenges that are running through the end of the month.
The first is from a group of sponsoring organizations: Rudy’s Barbershop, Ace Hotel, Bimbos Cantina, and Cha Cha Lounge who have together agreed to match up to $18,000 in donations made through our website and at their in store locations!
The second is from the folks over at Global Basecamps who have agreed to match the first $2,500 donated from their fans/clients. Both matching donation options can be found on our website through the link below.
If you are interesting in donating to the earthquake/tsunami relief efforts with our partner JEN in Japan, click on Donate below.
As we get ready to dive into a new year of challenges we want to pause and take a moment to celebrate all that we have accomplished. All of you have helped us achieve so much, and we give our deep thanks to everyone for their support!
In 2010 we…
We are now reaching over 6 million people in 15 countries across 4 continents.
We have treated hundreds of thousands of patients at our permanent and mobile health clinics in Africa, Asia, and the Americas
In India, Real Medicine Foundation surveyed over 37,000 families and 56,000 children across 500 villages for our Malnutrition Eradication Program with 38,000 counseling sessions held and over 6,000 cases of Severe Acute Malnutrition diagnosed.
In South Sudan, we initiated the First Ever Accredited Nursing and Midwifery College; the first class of 40 students is in full swing.
In Pakistan, we have been peacefully holding the Taliban at bay by providing access to healthcare for 150,000 in the KPK region.
Also in Pakistan, we have treated over 20,000 Flood Victims at our Free Medical Camps.
In Haiti, post earthquake, more than 200 patients were treated per day at our Primary Healthcare Clinic in Port-au-Prince and over $600,000 in medicines and supplies were delivered.
Our free clinic in Haiti provides public access to 24-hour emergency and general healthcare to a community that is home to more than 100,000 displaced persons living in tents.
In the drought regions of Turkana, Kenya, we gave food and water to thousands and provide medical support to a community of 30,000.
In Sri Lanka, India, Kenya, Uganda, more than 1,000 longer term care patients are cared for.
Across Africa and Asia, we support school fees for almost 1,500 children.
We are so grateful to all our followers, supporters and staff and wish everyone a fantastic 2011!
If you were considering donating to a worthy cause in 2010 and taking advantage of the tax benefits of charitable donations, now is your last chance to contribute!
As we look towards new efforts and projects in 2011 it is only through your generous funding that we will be able to continue our long term development projects in some of the poorest areas on this planet.
As you know, we have set the goal of raising $100,000 by December 31st, and would greatly appreciate if you consider Real Medicine for your year-end donation.
In the spirit of Real Medicine Foundation’s concept of “Friends helping Friends helping Friends” so much is possible when we do it together.
From all of us here at Real Medicine: Thank you for your support!
The difference between humanitarian aid and international development can be ambiguous. It is oftentimes hard to tell where the line is drawn between providing temporary aid to a people in need, versus truly helping them to rebuild and develop.
Real Medicine’s goal has always been to start with aid but move beyond that as soon as possible, and provide sustainable and truly internal development over the long term. The old proverb of “Give a man a fish vs. teaching a man to fish” is very close to what RMF tries to achieve with many of our projects around the world.
Watching other aid groups leave only months after the 2005 tsunami in Sri Lanka, Real Medicine made a vow to stay and truly rebuild. Newly formed, at the time, RMF’s work at the time was considered disaster relief but before long it was clear that our scope was beyond that, and perhaps even beyond traditional humanitarian aid.
Today, years later in 2010, Real Medicine’s Director of International Relations, Jonathan White, traveled to one of RMF’s biggest projects at the Kiryandongo Refugee Settlement in Uganda and found out first hand how this willingness to stay and challenge the conventional norms of aid vs. development can end up saving lives in a very different way.
With the help and backing of World Children’s Fund, Real Medicine does everything from providing health care, to fixing boreholes, to supporting the children and paying for school fees in the Kiryandongo refugee camp, home to Ugandan, Kenyan, Sudanese and Congolese refuges.
“Our impact here is enormous,” says White, “through the eyes of the 6,000 refugees living in this community; our projects touch almost every area of life in this settlement.”
From this standpoint, Real Medicine helps keep the community here stable allowing the community there to live and thrive–but there is still something missing. Setting up care and sustaining it was not enough, and it took some bored teens to shine the light on what could be the final step for this community and for true humanitarian development.
“The main thing repeated time and time again to me while visiting was that they need is some sort of vocational training center for teen and adults, “says White, “many bright teens are graduating from the schools we support with a good education, but with no trade skills, they aren’t qualified for any local jobs and they are turning to alcohol to dull their boredom and frustration.”
Watching their educated children and other young adults stagnate and slip into destructive activities, the community held a meeting with Jonathan while he was visiting, to intervene and try and save their children’s future. Three vocations were listed as those in high demand not only in the settlement but in the surrounding towns as well: carpentry, tailoring, and hairdressing.
“With vocational training these kids can find jobs that will allow them to support their families one day,” says Jonathan, “and that is the main point of what Real Medicine is trying to achieve—help people get back on their feet, and no longer need the aid from outside. These refugees have seen many humanitarian organizations come and go over the years and know that the only real long term solution is for them to be able to return to work in some capacity and rebuild their own lives independently.”
Working with the community we hope that donors will respond to this need with the same excitement that we have and help us move forward with a vocational program that will ensure that these teens, many of whom they have supported through school, are able to cross the final threshold and sustain their own lives.
Funding is needed to cover the costs purchasing carpentry, tailoring and hairdressing equipment/tools as well as covering the salary of the instructors.
Approaching our 5th birthday August 16th, 2010 and look back to remember who we go to where we are now, here is a voice from those early days: the second update sent from the ground after opening our first clinic in Sri Lanka writen by Dr. Martina herself.
In it Dr. Martina Fuchs gives grateful thanks to those tho helped her, speaking as a friend to her network of friends who came together to make it possible.
February 20, 2005
From Martina Fuchs in Mawella, Sri Lanka
Hi everybody, here I am again, with the next chapter from Sri Lanka. So much has happened, it almost feels like a lifetime in itself.
First: A million thank you’s! Thank you for all your e-mails and contributions and thank you for being so incredibly supportive and encouraging! It means the world to me since the need and despair here sometimes do get overwhelming. I am so grateful to have this amazing network of wonderful people in Europe and the US, of people who are so unbelievably generous. Please know that everything you contribute gets right to where it is needed the most and you do make a huge difference in the lives of innumerable people!
Today, Sunday, we just came back from a big event in Tangalle, the nearest town to our camp. Several optometrists had come from Colombo with a total of 500 glasses to examine people who had lost their glasses in the tsunami. Will had organized two vans and we shuttled about 50 of our villagers to Tangalle. The optometrists had set up camp in a Buddhist temple, the Wajiragiriya temple, and there were huge lines as we arrived. But almost everybody left happy and a lot of our villagers with new glasses.
Waiting in line with our villagers, we caught glimpses of the Buddhist Sunday school:
The Buddhist monks here in Sri Lanka have initiated celebrations to mourn the people who died in the tsunami and to celebrate their lives, the Peritha celebrations. One of these celebrations was held in our camp on Saturday night. All the villagers did their best to dress up, and many of the kids were actually proudly wearing their new clothes that had come in from donation packages within the last few weeks. We were invited to be part of the celebration. It never ceases to amaze me how generous they are with the little they have. I was sitting on mats with a whole bunch of mothers with their kids and there were small packages of peanuts. They took pride in making sure that I was never without supply. The children fell asleep one after the other, and the celebration, the chanting and praying continued throughout the night.
My little clinic is up and running, and I couldn’t be more proud.
I am proud to present two of my patients :
The Sri Lankan Navy helped us to install electricity, we have light, we have two fans (thank you, Commander Jagath Mutubandara, for making it all possible!).
Jonathan and Orrin built our examination table and all the furniture:
Wasana, a woman from the camp, sewed curtains for us:
We will get a sink, a water tower is already prepared in a nearby tree. Patients are lining up as soon as our clinic opens, and it is everybody, infants and children and their parents of course, but also adults of all ages, pregnant women, I believe there were about 70 patients in two days. Right now, we have an infection going around in our camp, a lot of children are suffering from really high fever. And what I am seeing a lot, too, are patients who had swallowed water when the tsunami happened and need reassurance that they are okay. At this point, I want to thank the pediatric surgery division of the Kinderkrankenhaus St. Marien in Landshut, Germany, and their chief, my brother, Dr. Oliver Fuchs, from the bottom of my heart. The seven large boxes of medical supplies that you have provided and sent to us are absolutely invaluable. We would not be able to work without them. We are absolutely impressed by your generosity.
A few days ago, I met with psychologists from Galle, who had organized a day of psychological evaluation for 250 children from 4 schools in the area who still showed signs of extreme emotional distress after the tsunami. They had arranged a day of singing, playing at the beach, etc. while they observed the children and their reactions in order to help them specifically. We connected with them to provide psychological support for the children in our camp, too, and are very proud that a psychiatrist now is specifically looking after our villagers.
Children paint the tsunami:
Father Surangika Fernando took me aside and told me about an inter-religious nursery he had organized in a Methodist church, including Muslim children, Buddhist children, Christian children, etc. It is a total of 60 children under 5 years of age who have lost one or both parents in the tsunami, or children coming from families who have lost everything in the tsunami. In addition to the kids in our camp, this is where the toys and children’s clothes are going to go that are coming out of the beautiful toy drives in Germany and the US. Words cannot express my gratitude, Mutti, Papa, Gloria, Christiana, Familie Sigl, all the children and parents of the Kindergarten Hersel, Uschi, Loren, and everybody else who is part of it and who’s contribution is invaluable. Because of your support and generosity, I can keep my promises to these children, I would be helpless without you.
As promised, here a quick update on the Tangalle Hospital project, that RealMedicine supports. For the complete proposal, please go to: www.realmedicine.tv/foundation/TengalleTrustIn the following are some impressions. As I had mentioned before, this hospital is in dire need, and we are committed to supporting Nick Buckingham’s efforts to renovate and upgrade it.
Hospital main entrance
Nick Buckingham
Men’s ward
Children’s ward
Children’s ward
Minor Surgery:
Hospital kitchen:
Burning of toxic waste:
Nurses and nurses’ room:
Hospital supplies:
Operating room:
Nick’s team at work:
I will update here on our website again in about a week, stay tuned…
Thank you for following up on our suggestion to take on sponsorships for specific families. We are choosing families right now and will keep you posted. Any suggestions or ideas are always welcome!
Last, but not least, I would like to thank all the travelers here in Sri Lanka who spontaneously decided to support our work, Kumar Fernando, Solange, Wim & Adri Hendrik, Jaques & Francoise Mourrieras.
Your generosity is highly appreciated.
Funding is needed to cover the costs purchasing carpentry, tailoring and hairdressing equipment/tools as well as covering the salary of the instructors.
Approaching our 5th birthday August 16th, 2010 and look back to remember who we go to where we are now, here is a voice from those early days: the second update sent from the ground after opening our first clinic in Sri Lanka writen by Dr. Martina herself.
Hospital main entrance
Nick Buckingham
Men’s ward
Children’s ward
Children’s ward
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