donate to india

You are currently browsing articles tagged donate to india.

India Malnutrition Program: Monitoring & Evaluation

August 5, 2011 in Caitlin McQuilling, General, India, Providing Medical Support, Rebuilding Communities, Strategies for the Future, Voices from the Field by Sarah Stern | Comments closed

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.

The following is a description of our current M&E system and the steps we went through to refine our processes and fix the problems we encountered.


M&E Process

Quantitative

  • Daily Diaries:  A simple book in which the CNEs freely record their daily activities and notes in the field
  • MUAC Diary:  CNEs each record in this daily register the names of SAM/MAM children they see and their Mid-Upper Arm Circumference.
  • Triplicate form: a triplicate carbon paper form which the CNEs use to refer children to the NRC and track the referral through the system.  One copy goes to the CNE, one to the family, and one is deposited at the NRC which we collect at the end of the month.
  • Weekly Reporting format:  Using the daily diaries, triplicate forms, MUAC registers the CNEs fill in the weekly reporting format and give that to their supervisors.
  • Monthly Reporting format:  The Supervisors collect all the CNEs’ weekly reporting formats and consolidate these into the monthly format.

Qualitative

  • CNE feedback form:  Filled out once a month by the CNEs to provide RMF management information about case studies, challenges, and success stories in the field.
  • CNE Needs form:  Filled out monthly by putting a simple tally in the boxes where they’ve had to give counseling.  Supposed to be a very easy way to assess the counseling needs in the field.

Process of verifying our data

We held our own internal audit of the first year of our reporting (May 2010 – March 2011).  Since our program is reporting big numbers and getting a lot of attention from government and NGOs, we wanted to be sure internally that our data was airtight and accurate.

Thanks to having a multi-layered MIS, we were able to go to the source of our reporting to get the accurate data.  By back-tracking of the data we were not only able to verify our data down to the individual child but also identify at which steps our MIS wasn’t working well.

Each CNE maintains a daily diary where she notes down information on the village she visited each day.  Then she copies all the information on children under 5 into a MUAC register, where she records the MUACs of children on each visit to the village over the months.  In this we have a full year record (or whenever the child was first identified) for each individual child.  This register is used by the CNE on a daily basis so that she can remember the history of each child she visits and so that she can see whether the child is improving or worsening on each visit to the village and can direct her counseling accordingly.  We believe that we have accurate MUAC registers for all CNEs, except for a few CNEs who we let go for poor performance.  For those villages we had the new CNEs we hired do fresh surveys and collect fresh data and compared that with the questionable data.

The CNEs use this register to fill out their weekly reporting format, which is submitted to their supervisor each week.  This format is where the problems with calculating and addition started.

The Coordinators then collect all the CNEs weekly formats and use those to create the district monthly aggregate report.  This is also where some errors occurred.

The weekly reporting formats and monthly reporting formats were filled out in hard copy by CNEs and District Coordinators, who did math by hand or using their cell phone calculators.  This many times led to human error which was not picked up until later when the data was entered into excel sheets by our data entry operator.  It was also a cumbersome process for the coordinators to consolidate all this data on a monthly basis and often took longer than RMF management would have liked.

Dr. Athar Qureshi, RMF’s Director of Programs, worked with the coordinators to create a new format, by village, where we reworked the totals for each village by month.  This gave us a more accurate number.  The Coordinators spent a weekend filling in all the data and checking the math.

Once the data was in an excel spreadsheet the team analyzed it and compared it to the original data submitted, the baseline data, and the NRC survey.  The NRC survey and baseline data are results we’re sure about because we can link those to the individual children, so those are good points to verify the data from.  We found that most of our data was reported accurately, with minor errors here and there, but that the process in which we collected our data was extremely time consuming and even more time consuming to go back and check.  This also made it difficult for the District Coordinators to apply the program data in the field and to do cross checking of reports which CNEs submitted.

During this review we also realized that there were many activities CNEs were conducting on a daily basis which were not reflected in our reporting formats.  CNEs recorded activities that were not reflected in the reporting formats as notes in their daily diaries, but each CNE recorded these activities in their own method.  During the data cross-checking these daily diaries proved to be very useful for checking numbers, names, and dates whenever there was a question in the reporting formats.  RMF realized the utility of having uniform reporting and a structure to these daily diaries while still allowing the CNEs some free area to write their personal notes.

We also faced some difficulties in the formatting of data from month to month as the overall compilation of the data was done by different people at different time intervals.  Before January of 2011, RMF did not have a data entry operator and instead all program data was entered by DCs or program managers.  Depending on how busy various individuals’ schedules were, one individual would enter the data for a few months and then another person would take over.

Lessons Learned

While this review of program data was tedious and painful at times, it was a tremendous learning experience for all staff members involved.  For the CNEs it was a process of reflection on the quantum of work they had done and also a time to formally point out questions they had and challenges they faced.  By spending so much time sorting through the program numbers, DCs gained an increased familiarity with what the numbers were actually capturing and became much more comfortable with data.  RMF’s program management also got to see where the gaps in reporting were and where we could support program staff better.

 

The following were some of the key lessons we learned and changes we’ve made to our reporting system:

  • The Daily Diaries and MUAC diaries are key, but structure is important
  • Someone needs to “own” the data
    • In November 2010 RMF realized this problem and requested our donors to provide us additional funding for a data entry operator and monitoring and evaluation officer who would “own” the data and make sure entry was uniform across all 5 districts.
  • Each piece of data should be clearly defined

Next steps

Following this review, the team created new, more intuitive daily reporting formats and a revamped MUAC diary to help address many of the problems we identified.  When introducing these new formats Dr. Athar and our Monitoring and Evaluation Manager, Julia Tewaag, held a two-day training for each district (10 CNEs and one DC) to introduce the formats, ensure everyone was clear on definitions and to walk CNEs and DCs through exercises which would help them better apply their data in the field.

 

With our M&E house in order, RMF is now ready to automate!  We have just launched an exciting pilot together with Dimagi and Microsoft Research India (MRI) to help us decide what is the best technology for our program to use.  With the help of Google and the Open Data Kit project, we’re also testing how Androids can be of use in our program.  More on those pilots in the next series of blog entries.

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


Tags: , ,

Voices from the field: Returning to Khandwa

March 4, 2011 in Caitlin McQuilling, Helping Children, India, Providing Medical Support, Rebuilding Communities, Voices from the Field, Whole Health by Jonathan White | Comments closed

by Caitlin McQuilling

RMF Community Nutrition Educator, Samoti, and a child recovering from SAM. Photo Credit: Ximena Prugue

In March 2009, when I was conducting the initial field visits to develop RMF’s Malnutrition Eradication Program I visited a village called Shali Dana, in Kalwa block of Khandwa district in Madhya Pradesh.  I remember being shocked and overwhelmed by the amount of children with severe acute malnutrition I saw in this village and the complete apathy and absence of government services in this village.  We saw dozens of glassy eyed children with thinning hair, bulging stomachs, and protruding ribs, empty anganwadi centers, and children who had been tortured by traditional healers in the name of recovery because of the absence of government health services.  Seeing this village convinced me that RMF had no choice but to do something drastic about this problem.

Samoti visiting Shali Dana

Fast forward to March 2, 2011.  Today I spent the day with our Community Nutrition Educator Samoti in Shali Dana.  She’s been working in this village for exactly one year and has made over 25 visits to this village, every 2 weeks.  Samoti has spent this last year developing a strong relationship with the community, visiting each house with malnourished kids on a bi-monthly visit, and has supported and encouraged government anganwadi workers.  Also over the last year, our friends at Spandan, a wonderful local NGO, have worked closely with the government anganwadi center to upgrade the center using community resources and have been working with the anganwadi worker to improve the quality of preschool education and other services offered to the community.  They have also done a lot of work to promote education in this village in both Hindi and Korku, the local tribal language which is in danger of dying out.

I almost started crying today as I sat in a beautifully painted anganwadi center listening to excited, energetic kids singing nursery rhymes in their native Korku when I remembered that this was the same village which shocked me so 2 years ago.  While being serenaded by the children Samoti showed me her register and went over the details of all the children with severe acute malnutrition in the village.  When she did her baseline survey in March 2010, this village had 14 children with severe acute malnutrition, roughly 15% of all children under 5 in the village, an alarming rate of SAM.

Photo credit: Ximena Prugue

Now the village has 0 SAM children.  We visited the households of 10 kids today who were formerly SAM.  Some of these kids were positively fat, while others were now moderately malnourished.  Watching Samoti made me proud.  As she walked through the village, she was greeted by each family walking by.  She scooped up children as she walked, joked with elderly women, and walked straight into people’s homes announced to pinch babies on the cheek.  If I didn’t know Samoti to be one of the warmest and most compelling women I’ve met, I would think this was all staged.  But having terrified 100s of kids by measuring their mid-upper arm circumference to assess their level of malnutrition I know that you cannot just come to a village once or twice and have kids walk up to you with their arms out, waiting for their MUAC reading.  And that’s exactly what a few of the toddlers in this village did!

If you’ve read the annual report from the Eradicate Malnutrition Program its easy to be overwhelmed by the numbers:

  • 65 staff across 600 villages
  • 37,141 families and 56,194 children reached during the baseline survey
  • 6,857 village nutritional training sessions conducted, training over 68,410 people
  • Counseled 91,034 individuals on malnutrition prevention and treatment
  • Successfully referred 895 children to NRCs
  • Achieved a 25% reduction in childhood malnutrition across intervention villages, 17,994 children who directly improved because of this intervention

They’re unbelievable numbers when you add them up, even for those of us who saw the progress in the field and did the adding.  I’m one of the members of the RMF team who spent hours and hours analyzing our program data.  Eyes bleary from staring at excel sheets and going absolutely crazy over the errors while cleaning data, we sacrificed our sanity and eyesight to make sure our data is as accurate as possible.  Even though I personally verified forms and conducted spot checks in the field to ensure the accuracy of reporting, I have a hard time believing that we reached over 80,000 children!

Young mothers and their children in Shali Dana

But today watching a new mother glow as she was breastfeeding her chubby infant and watching Samoti joke with mothers in the formerly tragic Shali Dana, I saw beyond the numbers and graphs to what RMF’s best at.  Here’s an invitation to every RMF supporter: come out and see for yourself the reality behind our numbers.  There’s nothing like it.

For more information about RMF’s Malnutrition Eradication Program in India, click here

We can use any help you are able to provide on this project to continue our Education, Treatment and Outreach and help towards our goal of Malnutrition Eradication in this region of India.

To contribute to this initiative, click on the Donate button below or visit our website at www.realmedicinefoundation.org

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Goong Hay Fat Choy, Day 2: How your donations saved two lives

February 9, 2011 in Helping Children, India, Jaimie Shaff, Providing Medical Support, Rebuilding Communities, Voices from the Field by Jonathan White | Comments closed

Continuing with our series from Jaimie Shaff in the field in India, here is Part 2!

by Jaimie Shaff

Naiara joined me on the second day and we began the day with a quick trip to the toy store. Luckily, the toy storeowners had just gone to Indore and had some more toys for us! We picked up a couple of our CNEs and headed back out to the villages, this time starting with some of the kids living in villages outside of our program’s reach.

Day Two:

Manoj

Manoj lives in a village that we do not cover in our program. It took us a little over 2 hours to get to the village, and then another half hour to find Manoj. Manoj was the victim of an inept doctor’s IV rampage, and had over 16 needles stuck in him in just two weeks. By the time we got another doctor to give him appropriate treatment Manoj was traumatized. His mother and I shared tears of frustration, but worked hard to get him better. And then he came for follow up in the middle of a measles outbreak and was promptly stuck with a measles vaccination! Poor kid. But, I’m happy to report he’s super healthy, afraid of me, but very happy with his new toys!

Vijay

Vijay was the first serious case at the NRC in June 2010. I didn’t know him, but the CNEs did. It turns out he lives right next door to Manoj! He and his twin brother are happy and healthy, and received some toys to share.

Neha is finally starting to gain some muscle in her legs, but is still in serious need of psychosocial support. She makes an attempt to walk and doesn’t hide as much, but is still needs a lot of TLC. Her father just grew a kitchen garden filled with green leafy veggies, so we shall see how she progresses in the coming weeks.

Amansingh before

Amansingh from house

On Day Two, we had a whole list of children to see. However, there was one child we absolutely had to see. Amansingh had come to the NRC in October, when our nurses Jana and Rachel were here. He was severely malnourished, filthy, covered in a fungal skin infection, and absolutely miserable. After a month in the NRC, he came back for follow up with a severe case of the measles, complicated by bronchial pneumonia and conjunctivitis. At this follow up, we were introduced to his little sister Suriya, 6 months at the time and ineligible for a vaccination. She was a beautiful baby girl, smiling all the time, and we hoped the mother’s breast milk would protect her.

Amansingh

Amansingh’s village is extremely far away and not covered by our program. I had never been out to his home, but quickly realized why his case was so severe. Their home is a 15-minute drive from the Anganwadi center, and does not have a water pump within a reasonable distance. There is no crop around the house right now, and the parents do not have any other form of income or access to markets.

Suriya how we found her

We arrived at the home to our worst nightmare. Amansingh’s little sister was lying on the ground outside naked, covered in flies, filthy, and crying. She was severely malnourished, and covered in the black marks indicating a recent case of the measles. She was also covered in scars. Her mother was sitting about 10 feet away rocking back and forth, laughing. Her mother is mad.

Amansingh emerged from the house with his father naked, filthy, and miserable. His skin infection had returned with his edema, and he was once again presenting with SAM. With a few words, we whisked the family into our car and began the trip to the Jhabua District Hospital, 2 hours away.

Amansingh and Suriya at hospital

In the car, I felt a little hungry (it was 3pm at this point and none of us had eaten since breakfast). I brought out a couple of snacks, including some dried fruit and a Luna bar. I offered around the car, and back to Amansingh’s family. To my absolute horror, I watched as Amansingh began to practically inhale the food. He hadn’t eaten in days. Needless to say, my hunger quickly disappeared.

We got to the hospital and our favorite doctor came to meet us, sad but not surprised that Amansingh was back. In good hands, we left the hospital and headed back home.

The problem is, this is not going to have an easy solution. The two little children’s lives have just been saved, but the problems are far from gone. The mother is psychologically disabled. The father is in his late 50s/60s. The house still has no access to water, food, or health services. The mother abuses the children during her fits.

Currently, there are no services available for children like this. Their rights as human beings do not exist, as there are no support structures in place to safeguard these elusive “rights.” They are safe, now, in a hospital, but they will no longer be protected when they return home. We cannot remove them from their homes.  We can barely stop ourselves from whisking these children away to a better life.

The sunny side is that without this toy-giving extravaganza, these children may not have had a chance. While we make every effort to follow up with our kids, sometimes it takes just a bit longer. For these two, we came just in time. Suriya still has innocence in her eyes, and it is beautiful.

Your donations and your generosity to my Facebook Cause saved the lives of Amansingh and Suriya. They changed the lives of many others and will keep on changing lives. It’s incredible how a little bit goes such a long way out here. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart. I can’t wait to continue giving.

For Amansingh and Suriya, we can give our attention and our awareness. We cannot do more than offer services and provide access to basic human necessities. We can only do our best. Our best, right now, is to spread the word, increase awareness, and incite change. Through change, be it policy or a magical group that knows how to help these kids, we are doing our best.  We can change the lives of so many future children by starting now.

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook or become a fundraiser for us at Causes.com

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 towards 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.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Voices From the Field: A Volunteer’s Story by Naiara Tejados

January 31, 2011 in India, Naiara Tejados, Voices from the Field by Jonathan White | 1 comment

Jhabua, January 24, 2011

I cannot stop thinking of how happy I feel knowing I made the right decision. For as long as I can remember, I have always wanted to have an experience like this. I can still remember how during the first year of my PhD studies I tried to contact several NGOs to try and volunteer in a developing country during my summer holidays. Most of the NGO´s would not accept my help for only a single month. I decided at that point to postpone this experience until my PhD was over.

Naiaraat with child at Jeevan Jyoti Hospital

During my studies, I was lucky when in 2006 the Basque Government gave me a grant to go to Minneapolis (USA) to attend a training course and learn how to identify, isolate, characterize and expand a stem cell type from murine bone marrow.  It was during this time when I first had contact with lovely India without actually visiting. I preferred to stay with a local family in the Minneapolis rather than staying in a hotel and that is how I met the most interesting person ever: Nancy Ramer, an elderly Scottish very religious woman. She told me, the day after I arrived, that after finishing nursery she attended many patients during the Second World War in England, and during this time received “a call from God” asking her to help: her help was needed in a foreign country far away. She thought she would be destined to Manchuria, but finally, much to her regret, she was destined to Sangli, near Pune, Maharashtra, India. She thought everyone would hate her because India had at this time just recently become independent from England. She stated her conditions emphasizing she would never stay longer than two years in India.

But Nancy –also know as, Adji, which means “grandmother” in the Indian Marathi language- also promised something else: she would never get married. However, shortly after reaching this country, she met the man of her life, with whom she  married a few years later: an American engineer also destined to India. Besides breaking her promise of never getting married, she also ignored her initial conditions of never staying in this country more than two years, as she had lived 37 years in India, giving birth to four children. She is the one that brought me here with her magic stories told almost 5 years ago.

Naiara at the Bhil Academy school

In 2010, after determining that my PhD studies would soon be over, through my friends in Minneapolis I tried to get in touch with several organizations working in India. In the beginning I contacted a new NGO called Help Kids India located in Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu. However, as I was so immersed in my PhD studies that these initial contacts did not work out.  Soon after I got in touch with a Spanish organization called Asha-Kiran, and decided to go to their Shelter-House for semi-orphan or orphan children located in Pune, Maharashtra. But this time due to the delay of the presentation of my PhD thesis, I lost the opportunity to work with them and did not fit in their plans anymore. My hopes to visit India were diminishing just a week before the presentation of my PhD thesis.

The day of the PhD thesis, the 7th of October of 2010, a member of the tribunal, Luis Rodríguez-Borlado, let me know that a friend of his was working in India with an organization, and that if I wanted, he could get me in touch with her. At first I thought it was not necessary, as I preferred to contact a Basque or Spanish organization just to be able to know it before hand. However, after contacting several people I realized that all my efforts were not bearing fruit. About to give up on everything, I emailed Luis to ask if he could put me in touch with his friend in India.

On the 9th of November, without much hope, I sent the first e-mail to Valeria de Ascoita. Even if I do not know her very well, I will say that Valeria is a wonderful person, that put herself in my shoes and did everything she could to help me achieve one of my biggest dreams. Living in Mysore, India, she let me know she that could give my Curriculum Vitae to one of the staff members of the Real Medicine Foundation (RMF). Surprisingly quickly and unexpectedly Dheepa Rajan, the RMF Project Coordinator for India soon got in touch with me showed Real Medicine’s interest in having me in Jhabua, Madhya Pradesh. How happy I felt!

I must say that since then everything has worked out smoothly. I recognized the professionalism of the organization immediately, and honestly, now that I know it first hand and have been with them for a couple of weeks, I must say I was not wrong.

Children at Jeevan Jyoti Hospital

After getting the visa that allows me stay in this country 6 months, I took the plane to Delhi on the 12th of January after stopping in Brussels. Even if I felt a little bit nervous, I must say that I was calm during the trip. I arrived in Delhi at 10:30 pm, and met with Real Medicine India team member, Jaimie Shaff, a young but mature lady that is the Program Manager for Health and Nutrition in India.

The next day, sleepy and tired and after being introduced to Caitlin McQuilling, the Director of Programs for RMF India, we went to a meeting. It was the first time I saw India in broad daylight. I remember how I analyzed everything on our way to the meeting; nothing attracted my attention especially but some cows eating garbage and a lot of people seemingly wandering aimlessly. But on our way back from the meeting, I witnessed one of the worse, if not the worst, moments of my time in India: suddenly we heard two sharp knocks in our back window. When I looked at them, my heart contracted: two little boys -two little angels- one about 6 years old, the other one about one and a half, were begging; the younger one was naked below the waist, both filthy. Caitlin opened the window and extending her arm, she gave them some food we had bought before the meeting. Looking at our gift, they moved away with big lovely smiles. I guess probably due to my tiredness from travelling and nerves…in tears I told Caitlin and Jaimie not to worry to see me cry, that this was my first shock in India. I began doubting my abilities to live in this country, fascinating but hard. I even thought of the possibility of having to leave India before expected.

RMF staff in the field

I have now been here more than 15 days, and I can ay that I have not felt the need leave early again even if I admit there are several things I miss. I think that little by little I am falling in love with this country. If I had to choose something, I would just choose the PEOPLE. I have been in touch with native tribal people, the poorest of the poorest economically, but the richest in the World in many other aspects. I am feeling things I would never expect before reaching this land. They are the most pleasant people I have ever met, children, adults, elderly men and women, who having nothing but give everything.

I have also had the chance to get to know one of the local schools closely. I love to sit down and look around; everything is so different compared to our western culture! The students, especially the younger ones, have stolen my heart. How tender they are! In this remote area of the World I have not seen any envy, laziness, jealousy, at least not by now. These people are a role model for everyone!

I am working as hard as I can, as my time in India is so short. I don’t want to leave the country without contributing to the improvement of something or someone, even if it is weak or insignificant. I came to give my best, in my own way or in theirs, at all costs; they deserve it. And honestly I think, even if I have only been with them for so long, Real Medicine is doing as much as possible to make my old dream come true, as the enthusiasm, the efficient working practices and the energy of the staff are boundless!

Naiara Tejados

Real Medicine Foundation Volunteer

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook or become a fundraiser for us at Causes.com

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 towards 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.

Tags: ,

Voices from the field: Goals for the New Year in India

January 19, 2011 in Helping Children, India, Jaimie Shaff, Providing Medical Support, Rebuilding Communities, Voices from the Field, Whole Health by Jonathan White | 1 comment

by Jamie Shaff

Pankaj walking

Happy New Year!

I finally arrived back to Jhabua after several planes, trains, automobiles, rickshaws, and countries. Go ahead and throw a bicycle in there for good measure. Unfortunately, I can’t say the same for skis, but it was definitely worth sacrificing the slopes for some family time. The United States showed me a wonderful Christmas and New Year, with as much family, friends, and food as I could cram in my short reprieve from India. And don’t forget the hot showers!

As I sit on my porch and watch the sunset across the valley, I find it hard to believe that just a few days ago I was sliding around in the snow. Globalization is truly remarkable.

My time in India began with an all-to-typical “doh!” moment as I heard my glasses tumble down the squat toilet on the train from Delhi. I write “heard” as I am quite literally blind, with vision of -7. I thank the Lord and every deity for the gift of contact lenses, for saving me from being absolutely handicapped, but life without glasses is not one I wish to live much longer! I do hope that some poor blind person finds the specs and is given the gift of sight. Note to self: from now on, I will only get large dark frames so that, if such an event is to ever reoccur, I will have a greater ability to see where they landed and stop them before they end up on the tracks!  However, my friends, glasses are not what I want to discuss.

My first days back in Jhabua left me with enough smiles and cheer to cover the glasses and more. Some of my absolute favorite patients came back for follow up with nothing but good news!

Twins

*Pankaj (4) has finally started walking, running, and saying, “Hello!” He enjoys playing with the toys at the NRC, and his 9-year-old aunt, Maria, is still taking excellent care of him. He eats with fervor, and has turned lethargy into attitude. We are still hoping to find a school for the two of them, but for now we are happy with his health and steady development.

Naiara and Pankaj

*My goal for the New Year was to make Basanti (3) smile (a girl who presented with full body edema November 2010, requiring an intraosseous blood transfusion-sans anesthesia- and NG tube). Not only did she smile (with teeth!) but she is also trying to walk and talk! Basanti needs an operation for her cleft foot, so my new goal for the year is to fix Basanti’s foot. It shall be done!

Basanti

*Our serious measles cases-Sangeeta (3), Pannu (1), Jaimuna (2), Gunga (2), and Mahima (2)-all came for follow up happy and healthy. They had plump little cheeks, were smiling and playing, and are altogether doing wonderfully! As we jump into our new year, we have some serious follow up to do post-measles outbreak, but I’m ecstatic to start off the year with some success cases.

Sangeeta and Pannu

Altogether, a India’s welcome has been filled with miracles. As we begin to get new programs started, old programs revamped, and future programs conceptualized, these miracle cases give us hope and inspiration. I guess we did something right in 2010—here’s to 2011!

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook or become a fundraiser for us at Causes.com

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 towards 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.

Tags: , , , ,

Malnourished Miracles: Vishal’s story

December 3, 2010 in Asia, General, India, Jaimie Shaff, Voices from the Field by Jonathan White | Comments closed

Continuing with our Malnutrition Eradication Program series and fundraiser another great blog from from Jaimie Shaff in the field in India…

by Jaimie Shaff

Every morning, when I wake up to the honking horns, howling dogs, and bustles of morning life I wonder how the day is going to be. As I lay out my yoga mat and dedicate my practice to what will be, I try to take a deep breath for all that I can not anticipate. See, life in the field is a constant state of uncertainty, a question of what will happen next, and a sequence of highs and lows, equilibrium a state I no longer know.

But it all somehow balances out.

Vishal on his first visit to NRC

Today I arrived to the NRC to the smiling face of Vishal. Vishal arrived at the NRC two months ago presenting with severe acute malnutrition, apparent moderate mental disability, vomiting, and diarrhea, and was not taking food. He had a very severe infection that was treated, but he continued to refuse to eat. His mother was pregnant, and had stopped breastfeeding him 5 months previously—Vishal had never had complementary feeding, and was not responsive to attempts to give him F75, even through the breastfeeding assist.

Vishal continuously reached for the breast of his mother and grandmother, particularly when food was offered to him. However, it appeared that when Vishal’s grandmother was with him, he was more cooperative to feeding. His mother did not come to the NRC for several days, and Vishal began to take the F75. When his mother returned, Vishal stopped eating again. After a week we referred them to seek treatment at another hospital to seek further treatment, but they told us that they had been there before and would not go back. We continued to tell the grandmother and mother how important it was to get him better treatment/nourishment. The grandmother made every effort to get Vishal to eat, but the mother seemed apathetic.

Vishal was my first seriously complicated case in which I had no idea what to do next. At one point, I was up in the middle of the night blending peanuts to make RUTF! When we weren’t watching, his mother and grandmother would try to sneak him biscuits and chips (definitely not in the protocol!), which he would nibble on occasionally, but eventually throw in a fit of anger. In some last ditch efforts, we tried to put RUTF on the biscuits to see if he’d take that, but he wouldn’t. After a week we had asked the family to go to Jhabua District Hospital, but they refused and asked to stay at Jeevan Jyoti.

Vishal after 2 months of treatment

After two weeks, the family wanted to go home for a few days and come back. A wave of kids had just arrived and we knew that another child would fill the bed—we had no choice but to, once again, refer. They told us that they wouldn’t go and asked us to try more, promising to come back in a couple of days. We couldn’t guarantee an empty bed, and when they left the hospital, we could only hope they sought treatment elsewhere.

Every follow up day I’ve looked for Vishal. We’ve sent Community Nutrition Educator’s to his village, but he was never home and no one knew where he was or if he was migrating. I knew when we referred him to a higher center that his condition was critical, and didn’t want to think of the worst-case scenario.

And then today I see his smiling face. He’s up running and laughing and sharing toys with other kids in the NRC. I was absolutely overwhelmed with happiness. His cheeks were plump, he had a sparkle in his eye, and he was smiling. Far from the listless, angry, stubborn child from 2 months ago, Vishal was on the mend.

It turned out that our counseling had actually worked. The grandmother took Vishal to Dahod for treatment and he was put on anti-Tuberculosis medicines. They used our feeding techniques to get him to eat nutritious food, and they have also been engaging him psychosocially, stimulating his mental development and helping him achieve the catch-up that he needs. His mother gave birth to her second son 15 days ago.  Now is the true test to the efficacy of our counseling efforts and emotional support: will the family take back the knowledge given to them at the NRC to raise a happy and healthy child? We hope so. Based on Vishal’s incredible improvement, I think things will work out.

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook or become a fundraiser for us at Causes.com

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 towards 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.

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Passion and Purpose: An Interview with Lisa Suen, Member of Athletes for Real Medicine

November 18, 2010 in Athletes for Real Medicine, Donate, Helping Children, India, Los Angeles, Providing Medical Support by Jonathan White | Comments closed

by Brandi Howell

Get to know the Athletes for Real Medicine through the “Passion and Purpose” interview series.  Leading up the the L.A. Marathon, we will be posting monthly interviews as well as additional Athletes for RMF updates here on the Real Medicine Foundation blog.   So, stay tuned…

Interview with Athletes for Real Medicine team member Lisa Suen by fellow team member Brandi Howell:

Lisa Suen, on the right

Q: How/why did you initially get involved with Real Medicine Foundation?

A:  At the beginning of 2010, I set a resolution to “do with a purpose”, meaning that I wanted to combine the things I loved to do with helping others – such as running my next marathon for a cause. It was during this year’s 2010 LA Marathon that I became aware of Real Medicine Foundation and its initiatives. After talking to the coordinator and reading up on their projects, I knew that Real Medicine Foundation was a charity whose values were in line with my own – providing long-term sustainable support to impoverished or disaster-stricken countries. These situations are often out of the local people’s control, so giving them hope and a way to better their situation was a value I was seeking out of a nonprofit.

Q: What inspired you to run the L.A. Marathon in 2010 with Athletes for Real Medicine Official Charity Team?

A:  After going through all the official charities for the LA Marathon (over twenty of them), Real Medicine Foundation stood out. They were a charity that I felt were in it for “the long run” when it came to providing humanitarian assistance.  I felt further drawn to their mission when I found out they were going to Haiti to provide support after the earthquake. That’s when I knew – this is who I’m going to run for.  In addition to their initiatives, I discovered that 92% of the funds raised would be directed to Haiti (the project of my choice).  This was especially motivating in my fundraising and training, as it was important to me to know that the end result would deliver clean water, food and medical supplies to the victims of Haiti.

Q: Tell us a little bit about Athletes for Real Medicine.

A:  Athletes for Real Medicine in my eyes is a community of athletes of all different abilities bound together through their support of a universal cause. It’s knowing as an athlete who excels in his or her own sport,  that he or she can transform that high-level of passion into helping others by supporting the Real Medicine Foundation.

Q: You went abroad to India to work alongside Real Medicine Foundation on their Malnutrition Program.  What were some of the highlights of that trip?

Baby William and mother

A:  The main highlight that sticks out in my mind even today is a baby named William in the village of Devigrah, just outside of the town where we stayed and where the Malnutrition clinic was based. We went on a field visit to identify any babies that were at risk for severe malnutrition. This is when we met William. He was already over a year old but had the appearance of a 6 month old. His eyes were glazed and watery, hair lacking pigment and he appeared extremely fatigued.  He suffered from severe malnutrition. Had the nutrition coordinators not identified him at that moment, he may have become another statistic in the overwhelmingly high malnutrition rates across India’s poorest states– rates that are even higher than in Africa, to my surprise! He was quickly referred to the nutrition center and began treatment. I was in India in May.  In November, I received word from India that Baby William is doing very well! The beauty of his story is: success, one child at a time.  This mission statement was established by Real Medicine Foundation in 2005 with the children in Sri Lanka, and it holds true today whether for a local child in Los Angeles or across the globe in India.
(Here is the link to the blog to give you some perspective http://www.realmedicineblog.com/2010/06/08/baby-williams-story-one-child-at-a-time-in-madhya-pradesh-india/#more-8377)

More malnutrition treatment success stories from our project here and here.

Q:  Real Medicine is in 14 other countries.  Why did you choose India?

Lisa at the Taj Mahal

A:  I would have to say that this went back to my personal “do with a purpose” goal for this year. I wanted to go to India for the sake of culture, yoga and history for my personal enjoyment. However, I wanted to tie that in with volunteering abroad. This is where fate intertwined my two purposes in India. Additionally, malnutrition eradication was a project I felt so passionate about. I believe that basic necessities, such as food, water, health and shelter are rights for everyone. These are fortunes I am blessed with everyday and it truly pained me to know that so many were without these basics throughout the rest of the world. No child should ever die because he or she does not have enough to eat.  Knowing that as many as 6 million children under the age of 5 were malnourished in India, I wanted to help in whatever way possible.

Q:  You’re planning on running the L.A. Marathon in 2011.  Is there any particular country or cause that you’re fundraising for?

A: I think my “theme” for next year will be “sustainability”. I find that it helps me with my yearly goals when I stick to a simple theme. With that, I will run for Haiti and India – two projects that I started supporting in 2010 and hope to sustain in 2011.

Q:  What words of wisdom would you share with the first-time marathoners out there?

A: Determination and passion for something greater will get you to the finish line. Step by step, mile by mile, you’ll get there, but enjoy the scenery and enjoy the “now” moment. To sum it up best, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” – Confucius – as is true in the marathon and in life. So press on!

For more information about RMF’s Athletes for Real Medicine, click here.

Folllow us on Twitter or our Athletes for Real Medicine Facebook page or our Group page on Facebook

To contribute to RMF, please click the Donate button below or visit our website at realmedicinefoundation.org.


Tags: , , , , , , , ,

New York Times covers the Malnutrition crisis in India and our Treatment Center

August 9, 2010 in Donate, Helping Children, India, Providing Medical Support, Whole Health by Jonathan White | Comments closed

Very good article published in Sunday’s New York Times about the malnutrition and food crisis in India.  This focuses specifically on the crisis in Jhabua and Madhya Pradesh where our Malnutrition Initiative and Team India are based.

Link to New York Times article here.

There’s even a photo featured in the article of the treatment center (NRC) that we support in partnership with the Jeevan Jyoti Hospital.   Photo here.

To see our photos of the inauguration of our treatment center at the Jeevan Jyoti hospital :  Slideshow on our website

More information on our Malnutrition Initiative in Jhabua: Malnutrition Eradication Initiative, Madhya Pradesh

To contribute to this or any other of our efforts, please click the Donate button below or directly through our website at realmedicinefoundation.org

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

© Real Medicine Foundation | About Us | Contact Us | Real Medicine TV | Donate | Subscribe to feed