Click on link to visit our website where Annual Report can be viewed and downloaded as a PDF document
http://www.realmedicinefoundation.org/initiative/update/annual-report-20102011
Category Archives: Rebuilding Communities
Thank You For An Amazing Year!
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!
Photos from our Holiday Party for kids in South Los Angeles
Real Medicine Foundation and the Florence Western Medical Clinic in South Los Angeles hosted its 4th Annual Children’s Holiday Party on December 17, 2011. Each year, RMF provides toys, sports equipment, books and grocery cards for holiday dinners to meet the needs of these often-overlooked families.
Over 60 bags of gifts were given away at this Saturday’s Holiday Party for kids in South Los Angeles!-To read more about our programs at the Florence Western Medical Clinic, click here.
Photos from our event below:
Japan Relief Update: Photos and Field Report through September
by Jonathan White and RMF Partner Fumiko Tanaka at Japanese Emergency NGO
Geographic Locations
Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture
Taking Care of Local Students during Summer Vacation
Beneficiaries
Approximately 1,690 individuals, employees of 7 local companies, 11 households and the residents of 11 communities of Ishinomaki were reached by JEN’s activities during this period.
India Malnutrition Program: Monitoring & Evaluation Part 2
“From Mud Huts to the Cutting Edge of Technology”
by Michael Matheke
In March 2010, Caitlin and I were driving around Khandwa district on a motorcycle desperately searching for staff to begin operations of our ambitious “Eradicate Malnutrition” program. In our heads, we had a checklist of criteria for potential new staff, mostly focusing on education levels and any experience in the health, nutrition, or NGO sector. As we drove from hamlet to hamlet, over dried streambeds and through fallow, dusty farmland, the checklist was whittled down to one item: literate.
In July of 2011, 5 of our amazing CNEs from Khandwa are now on the cutting edge of technology, helping Microsoft design their Digital Slate technology for data collection in the field. At the same time, the rest of our Khandwa team is collecting information with an application on their phones specifically designed from RMF called Commcare. After a 3 month study, Microsoft Research will publish a paper based on the inputs of our team comparing these solutions to data collection problems. It seems that my initial pessimism, as it so often is, may have been a bit misguided.
India Malnutrition Program: Monitoring & Evaluation
by Caitlin McQuilling
“Don’t automate a broken system”
Monitoring and evaluation is often the most difficult part of any development program. It’s often an afterthought for implementers, too busy worrying about rolling out the immediate and the tangible to worry about how they’ll evaluate their work at some later stage.
It’s important that data is not something that’s just written down in a grid each month and never seen again. The strongest programs are the ones in which ground level staff find their reporting useful in their daily work. By making data helpful to ground level staff it makes their reporting in turn more accurate.
Even though RMF put a focus on our M&E from the beginning of our program, it has continued to be one of the biggest struggles in implementing our program on the ground. As our program grows we are not only constantly assessing, analyzing and evaluating our data but also try to give the same level of analysis to the processes by which we collect data.
In this age where there seems to be a tech solution for everything, many development programs make the mistake of thinking that technology will be a “silver bullet” which will fix all of their challenges in the field. The best advice we received from one of the technology experts we were consulting with when deciding which direction we should take our program was “don’t automate a broken system,” meaning that before introducing any new technology, an organization should make sure their fundamentals are solid. As we moved forward with the planning of two innovative technology pilot programs for data collection integrating technology such as mobile phones or digital slates, we also needed to ensure that the fundamentals of our program are strong and that we understand and were honest about our strengths and weaknesses in data collection.
Voices from the field: Preventative Health Campaign Outreach in Cleto Rojas, Peru
by Jana Siu
Vicki the pharmacist described to me the neighborhood of Cleto Rojas in San Clemente as rustic. I found “rustic” to be an understatement. This area increased dramatically in size after the earthquake. Houses are constructed of wooden poles and mats of weaved reed stalks as roofs and walls. Plastic sheeting, some that have the emblem of medical relief organizations long gone, insulate these homes. It’s a very dusty, windy, dry part of town. We chose Cleto Rojas as the location to do our preventative health campaign.
Tumbling out of our cramped motos with our supplies and anticipation, we were slightly disappointed to see all of 5 people sitting outside. But knowing that information spreads pretty quickly through paper-thin walls (literally), we soon found ourselves in a crowd of 60.
Thank you to Andrew Weiss Gallery for Fundraising Event!
On behalf of all of us at Real Medicine Foundation, we would like thank everyone involved for the wonderful fundraising event at the Andrew Weiss Gallery on Sunday!
Your support, generosity and contributions will make a difference in the lives of countless children and their families we serve around the world.
Photos of the event below:
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- Yolanda Parker and Dr. Martina Fuchs
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- Denise Weiss and Dr. Martina Fuchs
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- Diane Sargisian, Denise Weiss, and Nina Sventitsky
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- Jody Weinberg
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- Lily and guest
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- Lily and guest
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- Lily Yu
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- Lyndie Benson
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- Nina Sventitsky
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- Steve Glenn and Leslie Berliant
Real Medicine Providing Hope for Refugees in Uganda
In recognition of today’s World Refugee Day, we would like to highlight our work with refugees in Uganda and the overall plight of more than 40 million uprooted people around the world. With conflict and natural disasters escalating in many countries, finding new homes and allowing refugees to restart their lives is increasingly difficult.
Real Medicine Foundation (RMF) supplies the Kiryandongo Refugee Settlement in Uganda, a home to more than 26,000 Sudanese, Kenyan, Congolese and internally displaced Ugandans, with something rarely found at refugee camps; HOPE. Providing this hope to Kiryandongo by supporting the healthcare, education and vocational support of its residents. We have been working with Kiryandongo since 2008 through a grant from the World Children’s Fund and other individual donations and in collaboration with UNHCR and the Ugandan Office of the Prime Minister.
RMF Los Angeles Outreach Program update
by Sarah Stern
Annual Report for RMF Outreach program at the Florence Western Medical Clinic
Real Medicine’s partnership with Whole Foods Market, Venice, California is continuing successfully. In the last 12 months, 1,728 patients were provided with bags of nutritious groceries. Patients sign up at the Florence Western Medical Center’s front desk to be considered to receive food. We are looking into additional partnerships with organizations and grocery stores that would be able to meet the growing dietary needs within this community.
Our children’s Health & Fitness program is held the 1st and 3rd Saturdays of the month, from 10am-2pm. Fitness instructor Roz Baker provides nutritional education and goals along with a fitness “boot camp” that provides children with fun, yet challenging exercises and a cardiovascular workout. Our yoga instructors provide the children with stress relieving breathing techniques and poses that they can take into their daily lives. 144 children were provided Health & Fitness instruction along with yoga and nutritional classes last year. The physical condition of most of the children participating in the program starts out as poor.