Real Medicine India is proud to introduce its newest staff member, Jaimie Shaff, as the team’s Program Manager for Health and Nutrition. Jaimie recently completed her Master of Public Administration for International Public and Non-Profit Management and Policy Analysis at New York University.
While Jaimie is new to the RMF team, she’s not new to our programs. For the past year Jaimie has been a part of the 4 person “Capstone” team, assigned to help RMF’s “Eradicate Malnutrition” program through NYU’s Wagner School of Public Service’s Capstone program. Jaimie and her colleagues spent two semesters helping RMF analyze the program, providing valuable inputs for program development, including helping us finalize baseline surveys and conducting an important pre-program gap analysis.
While visiting us in Jhabua in January, Jaimie and the Capstone team conducted surveys on the healthcare access and nutrition information in many of the villages that became part of our intervention. In addition to the actual report, Jaimie and her team’s information gathering process was extremely helpful for our team on the ground for targeting our intervention and connecting our Community Nutrition Educators with local health workers. Furthermore, Jaimie and her team’s identification of gaps in systems in Jhabua helped us gain a better understanding of some of the causes of malnutrition in Madhya Pradesh.
NYU Capstone Team, with RMF's Caitlin McQulling (on right)
We are encouraged by the continuity of Jaimie’s commitment to RMF’s program, from consultant and student to full time employee. The entire RMF India team is excited to welcome Jaimie to the team. The addition of her experience, perspective, and enthusiasm will aid a program that is already affecting the lives of tens of thousands of children at a time when monsoon rains are bringing new diseases that particularly target the weakened immune systems of malnourished children. RMF India, and the other country teams, hope that we can use this experience as a model for strengthening partnerships and bringing in new, and equally talented, employees into our growing programs.
If you’d like to donate to this or any of Real Medicine’s causes, you can click the donate button on this page or through our website at realmedicinefoundation.org
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.
DonationTravel joins Real Medicine to help Turkana, Kenya.
Between now and March 21st, DonationTravel will be donating $0.10 per search to RMF Turkana relief. Go to http://www.donationtravel.com/kenya and begin your search.
DonationTravel was designed to give back without slowing down.
“We are trying to create a new way of doing business,” says DonationTravel’s Founder. “Up until recently, money from marketing and advertising on these kinds of sites has bypassed all the philanthropic concepts that drive people to do good. This is, in a way, creating a marketing campaign that instead of supporting other corporations, supports non-profits.”
Regardless of which search engine or travel site you normally use, chances are you can search them through DonationTravel and get the exact the same cost. In fact, there are so many options that you may find that the search engine you were using is not actually the cheapest.
So, next time you are planning on taking a trip, take a moment to give back by searching and purchasing through DonationTravel.
“We decided to support the efforts to get water and immediate relief to the people in the afflicted areas as quickly as possible,” says Dr. Martina Fuchs, Founder and CEO of Real Medicine.
In addition to coordinating with the NY Times office in Nairobi, RMF is coordinating with WorldVision to deliver food to children under the age of five. We are also linking with local water/ irrigation projects in the region for longer term water and food security.
Already on his way to Southern Sudan, Michael Lear, Director of International Relations for Real Medicine, will be in Kenya this weekend to begin setting up an infrastructure that will assist those afflicted worst.
For as long as anyone cares to remember, the pastoralists of Kenya’s Rift Valley have fled with their herds to the fertile slopes of Mount Kenya when times are tough. When the rains failed this year they set off once again in search of water and pasture — but they found only despair.
Across the folds of this mountain everyone has the same story. Hundreds of dead cattle dot the forests, young herdsmen try to coax ailing calves onto their feet, knowing that if they don’t get up they will die.
Millions of Kenyans are facing the same stark reality. The World Food Program (WFP) says that, together with the Kenyan government, they will need to feed 3.8 million people across the country.
download The Banger Sisters dvd“We are facing a really difficult situation. We realize that the world economic crisis has affected the amount that countries can give to us,” says WFP spokesperson Gabrielle Menezes, “But at the same time we are seeing an awful situation in Kenya. If we don’t start feeding people now things are only going to get worse.”
, founded in Germany in 2005, has undertaken the task of facilitating access to information regarding professional training and further education through information sharing. People who are concerned by the problems described above are brought into contact with one another. Members can then exchange their experiences in the different areas of international health and help each other with vocational matters
Real Medicine India is proud to introduce its newest staff member, Jaimie Shaff, as the team’s Program Manager for Health and Nutrition. Jaimie recently completed her Master of Public Administration for International Public and Non-Profit Management and Policy Analysis at New York University.
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
Giving back by getting away
In Kenya, people are dying as they lay waiting for help. Children are starving, choking on powdered foodstuffs that they cannot swallow without water.
“We decided to support the efforts to get water and immediate relief to the people in the afflicted areas as quickly as possible,” says Dr. Martina Fuchs, Founder and CEO of Real Medicine.
The following has been taken from 
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