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.
In honor of our Healthcare project in Armenia, Nairy Ghazourian the Country Director for RMF Armenia, forwarded this documentary filmed by a friend, Sara Anjargolian, about poverty and development issues today in Armenia.
Link to Documentary: http://www.telegraph21.com/video/how-we-live-life-on-the-margins-in-armenia
Ani, 12, and her father Senik. The lack of heating during the winter caused Ani to contract a serious respiratory illness.
The documentary How We Live documents the face of poverty in the former Soviet Republic of Armenia as told through the personal stories of families living along the margins. The lives depicted show families prevailing against inhuman odds and simultaneously making peace with what should be unacceptable.
By Kevin Connell and Jonathan White
This series of video clips was shot by RMF’s Kevin Connell in the St. Pierre Square tent camp in Petionville, an upper-class neighborhood of Port-au-Prince. This is a small tent camp set up in a public square but one of the largest tent camps in the city is located on a nearby golf course with an estimated 50,000 people occupying. Voluntary settlements like these were setup in virtually every square or open space in the city after the disaster. These clips gives you a little more insight into the living conditions that most of the Haitians displaced by the earthquake are still dealing with. Little has been done to create any longer term housing solutions, but as you can see from these video clips the Haitian’s are still making the best of a very tough situation.
http://www.realmedicinefoundation.org/video/interview-with-evens
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
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.
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!
RMF’s Michael Lear is in the arid Turkana district of Northern Kenya trying to find the best way to help the most people get clean drinking water.
Like so many areas, the Turkana district has suffered the same hunger and thirst for longer than most would like to remember. And with rain becoming more and more scarce with each passing year, faith in the future is becoming equally hard to come by here.
Here is a video that touches on the desperation these people are feeling: Millions face starvation in Horn of Africa
As the video explains, these villagers rely exclusively on international aid and with the financial crisis slowing down funds they have been without food now for two months—and they do not know why.
As a new blog volunteer for the Real Medicine Foundation (RMF) and a fan of YouTube, I took to searching it the other day for related video on RMF. Lo and behold, there was more to choose from than expected. I particularly liked this one with Carly, as it does a good job of explaining the <still brief!> history of the foundation.
It is truly inspirational how one motivated pediatrician’s instinct to hop on a plane to Sri Lanka to help in a disaster has turned into a foundation spanning a dozen+ countries.