Tag Archives: india

CFHI Salutes Medical Director Dr. Raj on World Social Justice Day

February 20th is World Social Justice Day. We would like to take this day to highlight one of our partners who has been working to achieve social justice. Dr. Rajagopal has been helping to reform the Hospice and Palliative Care laws in India through his organization, Pallium India.Through both personal visits to patients, and by building a strong system of doctors across the nation, Dr. Rajagopal has highly improved the state of Palliative and Hospice Care in India. Access to Morphine and Pain Killers is an enormous problem in India because of previous problems with morphine addictions. India has the highest amount of victims for mouth cancer, and it is estimated that less than 3% of cancer patients get proper pain relief. (1)

Dr. Raj conducting a home visit, Trivandrum Southern India

Dr. Raj conducting a home visit, Trivandrum Southern India

Fortunately, laws in India have been changed. Now, a policy has been set so that in Kerala, doctors with at least 6 weeks of training, such as Dr. Rajagopal, can prescribe morphine for palliative care. (2) The rule was introduced in June 1998 in Trivandrum, the capital city of the state of Kerala. Since then, the central government has recommended this new rule to all the states in India. The idea of easier access to morphine and other pain relieving drugs was initially recommended by organizations and committees such as WHO Collaborating Center for Policy and Communications in Cancer Care (Wisconsin, USA). The Center is currently attempting to simplify complicated state narcotic regulations to further improve the availability of opioid analgesics.

Through his organization, Pallium India, Dr. Rajagopal strives to provide Palliative and Hospice care to those that need it. Not only does Pallium India provide medical care to patients, but the organization also provides resources such as food and sewing machines to the patient’s family to help them get back on their feet. CFHI has partnered with Dr. Rajagopal to launch the Palliative Care In Southern India Program in Trivandrum, India that centers around Hospice and Palliative care. The CFHI participants involved in the program are given the opportunity to visit the patients and experience first hand how patients are treated and managed. Pallium India and CFHI have worked together to reform India’s Hospice and Palliative Care system.

(1), (2) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3573467/

 

-Special thanks to guest bloggers Alexandria Tso and Nayanika Kapoor for contributing this article.

Exploring the “Family” in Child Family Health International

You may have heard people refer to CFHI and those involved in the organization as part of a global family.  Our ‘family’ is made up of wonderful volunteers, health care providers, devoted  staff (stateside and abroad), as well as the fastest growing part of our family– more than 7,000 CFHI alumni and counting!India-Hands  We have been growing our family and projects for over 20 years.

CFHI is not only a global family, but we serve families.  Two projects that come to mind when I think about how our work affects families are projects that target the long-distance trucking industry in India and the illegal sex workers that support this industry.

In India, young men, and boys barely out of school, travel the highway system connecting the most distant corners.  The work is hard, the hours long, and the travel dangerous on the over-crowded highways connecting coast to coast.  While away from home for 2-6 months at a time, many truck drivers engage in sexual activities with prostitutes.  Two National Aids Control Organization (NACO)-based foundations that target this population are the Society for the Promotion of Youth and Masses (SPYM) and SWACH (Survival for Women and Children Foundation).

Actors performing skit on STD awareness at truck stop in New Delhi, India.

Actors performing skit on STD awareness at truck stop in New Delhi, India.

Both do amazing outreach and fieldwork with peer educators, some once truckers themselves. They captivate the young audience by performing skits (see photo, right), playing card games, leading monthly health camps, and offering the men free hair cuts and shaves while they talk about safe sex.  SWATCH peer educators target the high-risk female sex workers~ often widowed women (some still in their teens) who have been forced into sex work to support their children. Their main activities include teaching why condom use is important, the importance of regular HIV testing and resources are available if they test HIV positive.  They even teach the woman how to put on a condom on men in the dark by demonstrating how to put a condom on a model blind-folded!  Challenges ahead include rehabilitation training for the sex workers.

The family in Child Family Health International is both our global family of staff and local health care providers that make CFHI Global Health Education Programs the amazing experiences they are, and the network of folks, our alumni, who have been touched by CFHI’s transformative programs, as well as the families served by CFHI programs and reinvestment in host communities.

 

International Women’s Day- A Story From CFHI India

alwar2Evaleen Jones, MD is the founder of Child Family Health International (CFHI) and Clinical Faculty at the Stanford University School of Medicine.  Today, on International Women’s Day we feature an experience from her recent visit to CFHI partner sites in India, and a story from a woman she met while there.  Her story  carries the message of community empowerment that CFHI embodies.

January 31.  Today we visited Continue reading

CFHI’s Model for Global Health Electives Included in Oxford University Press Publication

Oxford Handbook on Neuroethics

Oxford Handbook on Neuroethics

“Global Health Ethics is once again in the forefront of discussion with the recently published Oxford Handbook of Neuroethics chapter emphasizing the relevance of biomedical, clinical and public health ethics within the global medical and academic community.  Child Family Health International’s (CFHI) Evaleen Jones M.D., Jessica Evert M.D., Scott Loeliger M.D., and Steven Schmidbauer co-authored the chapter on the importance of establishing and sustaining an ethical framework for educational global health programs.

With growing interest in Global Health Electives among the medical and academic community, there are genuine concerns regarding equity, justice, and sustainability within underserved communities.  CFHI’s chapter discusses global citizenship via a socially responsible framework to create positive global health educational experiences for students and host communities, connecting students with local health professionals and through direct investments in local community based projects.  ”

So reads the beginning of the Press Release for CFHI issued today.  Needless to say, we are all very proud and very happy to have this recognition especially from such a noted publisher as Oxford University Press.  The portion that CFHI contributed to this chapter on Global Health Ethics is an attempt to describe our model of working in underserved communities by identifying local experts and building on the inherent strengths of the communities.  We have seen over and over again low-resource settings where amazing things are being accomplished every day in patient care due to extremely dedicated local professionals.  We see their deep commitment to serving the people and we join together with the local health professionals to design Global Heath Education Programs that are open to international students and trainees.  You can read our submission here but I want to take this opportunity to thank all our international partners who have chosen to work with us to develop this model and make it successful for the last 20 years.  No partnership is one-sided and we are deeply indebted to all the local doctors and nurses, hospital and clinic staff, local coordinators, host families, language teachers, drivers and many others who make our international programs function so well, even in some very challenging circumstances.  Our hats are off to all members of the CFHI global family –you all share in this recognition!

Read the full CFHI Press Relase and Chapter.

Empowerment Means Having a Voice

Voices of empowerment from women in rural Northern India

About an hour outside of the north Indian city of Dehradun, the terrain starts to change as you begin to enter the foothills of the Himalayas.  Paved streets give way to winding dirt roads, some seemingly carved into the incline of the mountain like the etches of a screw and only wide enough for one vehicle.  Luckily almost no one in this area has a car, so we are usually sharing the road only with the monkeys and the goats.  On this particular trip, the monsoons have not yet released India from their grip and our vehicle struggles on the loose dirt and gravel as the torrents of rain pour down.  Oddly enough, here, about as far away from an urban setting as you can get, I’m reminded of a car wash because the sheets of rain are hitting the car so hard that you can feel their force on the hood of the vehicle like the power washes you can get back home.

CFHI Logo SmallLuckily, as we reach the village of Patti, the torrents subside and we are able to disembark without getting too wet.  CFHI has supported the operation of a clinic in this area since the late 1990s –it is the base of the CFHI Rural Himalayan Global Health Immersion Program.  In the last seven years, we have trained women elected from the surrounding villages as health promoters.  Previous to these efforts, there was no organized healthcare happening in this area.  Today is a meeting of the health promoters, some having walked as many as five hours for the event (a fact that always humbles me greatly).  An initial three year training effort took women with little or no formal education and taught them the basic skills of health promotion.  Many of them come from a long line of traditional birth attendants, so they already had some experience in the area of health.  After the initial training, they have been able to monitor women throughout their entire pregnancy.  Additionally, they instruct their communities on many topics: sanitation, nutrition, immunizations, hygiene, and family planning, to name a few.

As the rain began to intensify once again, we huddled around two tables pushed together on a porch, under a metal roof, next to a rice field.  The sound of the rain caused everyone to move in closer and lean in to hear.  My many previous visits over the years have been in more extreme dry heat when we sat spread out in the shade as we

CFHI Health Promoters Meeting in the Village of Patti, Northern India

CFHI Health Promoters Meeting in the Village of Patti, Northern India

talked.  –Of course I need to stop here and say that since I have no capacity in Hindi, the CFHI India Coordinator, Ms. Hema Pandey, was gracious enough to do the translation, and her easy, relaxed, yet professional manner also contributed greatly to the level of the conversation.  Maybe it was this more close huddling, or maybe it was just the product of seven years of meeting them once or twice a year, but for whatever reason, this time the conversation took a more intimate track.  Over the years, our meetings have been about stories of the work the Health Promoters are doing, each in her own village.  I’ve always been moved by their commitment and dedication as the women are all volunteering in this role and, at times, it can occupy a lot of their time and energy.  We always talk about what they need and we try to line up successive training experiences for them.  Today, however, I somehow felt like I could ask them more about themselves.  Now, all these years into their work, I could see in them their own sense of being experienced –that they are really settling into their roles.   It also helped that there was a young 18 year old woman who had joined us for the first time, as she now wants become a Health Promoter.  The older women took her under their collective wing as she found it hard to answer any direct questions –not used to being asked her opinion.  “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it,” was the message as all the older women laughed.  “We were all once like you,” one of them told her, “not knowing how to speak, not sure what to say … you’ll learn.”  It was also touching to see the older women buoyed in spirit by her interest.  There was more of a general feeling –not only of pride, but also of purpose, and an almost palatable sense of hope for the future in the smiles of the older women, broader than I have ever seen them before.

I asked the women what they liked most about their work.  They answered with the stories of what they have been able to do.  “And for you,” I asked, “what do YOU like about it.”  There was some discussion amongst the group. They said that they like “feeling empowered.”  “What does it mean,” I asked, “to feel empowered?”  “It means that now I can speak,” said one, motioning to the new recruit whose personal growth and self confidence the women will now each personally see to.  “It means I can teach,” said another.  “It means improvement, progress for the whole village,” said another.    This spawned a longer conversation of the feeling of satisfaction they have in seeing the results of their work.  They see women having healthier pregnancies; they see children growing up stronger and healthier.  One of the biggest changes, they report, is that now, even the men of the villages will listen to them in a way that never happened before.  The women told me that the men have come to see the women as possessing knowledge and understanding as a Health Promoter that no one else has.  What was even more remarkable than the statement itself was the body language, the tone of confidence, and the feeling of accomplishment that came through in these statements, none of which required the skills of a translator to be successfully communicated.

A Visit with The Father of Palliative Care in India

Dr. Rajagopal Dispenses  Needed Medicines and a Healthy Dose of Respect.

Pallium India

Pallium India

 

After a meeting with CFHI’s Founder, Dr. Evaleen Jones at Stanford University, Dr. Rajagopal (Dr. Raj),  the Founder of Pallium India agreed to become one of CFHI’s newest partners in India.  CFHI India Coordinator, Ms. Hema Pandey, and I had the privilege of spending three days with him in Trivandrum, Southern India as we work to develop a CFHI Global Health Immersion Program exploring Palliative Care.

As the monsoon season takes its time to come to a close, the beautiful, lush countryside around Trivandrum in Kerala –Southern India is as calming as the Trivandrum, Indiapresence of Dr. Raj to his patients. We were given the great privilege of being allowed to shadow Dr. Raj during a day of home visits to various patients of Pallium India, the nonprofit he founded.

Who is Dr.  Rajagopal

Dr. Raj is responsible for beginning the palliative care movement in India.  He tells me that while the goal of palliative care might be the same in India as it is in England, where the modern hospice movement was started, the implementation is different.  Dr. Raj feels that to simply pick up and transplant palliative care as it has been developed in the West can inadvertently have consequences that cause more suffering –when the main goal of palliative care is to reduce suffering. Dr, Raj is indeed a unique individual; he is both a visionary and a worker in the trenches.  To follow him for a day doing home visits was inspiring.  It was also a primer in how to do this kind of patient care.

Dr. Raj pointed out to me the four domains of patient care that were outlined by Cicely Saunders, the founder of the modern hospice movement.  The four interlocking domains are Physical, Emotional, Social, and Spiritual.  It is certainly a tall order for anyone to provide such comprehensive care, and to do it in low resource settings is even more challenging.

A Day in the Life– Implementing Palliative Care in India

As we drove into some of the poorest communities in Southern India, Dr. Raj and his team, a nurse, a social worker, and a driver went about their routine.  Patient files are reviewed as we travel in the van.  The size of the patient files is notable.  After Dr. Raj read the file a bit, he begins to tell us the context of the family we are about to see.  We get a succinct yet

Ms. Hema and Dr. Raj on home visits Pallium India

Ms. Hema and Dr. Raj on home visits

thorough description of the family composition and history.  The level of detail is impressive and we even had a few questions about the family that Dr. Raj answered from the record.  I asked him when he last saw the family and he said that this was his first visit to them.  There are three other teams conducting home visits and so the family has been seen by the other teams in the past.  It is amazing to see the level of detail that is recorded from the home visit.  From these notes, other services from nutrition, to physical therapy, to social work are provided –all driven initially from the teams’ weekly or fortnightly visits.

As we arrive, Dr. Raj gives warm and respectful greetings.  He makes use of his reading of the chart right away to let the family know that he is up to speed on the situation even though this is his first time seeing them.  Telling and retelling the story can be a help, at times, for a family but to have to do it with every healthcare worker that shows up, can become a burden.

In the home visit, Dr. Raj is totally in his element.  Calm, positive, and respectful, he has a way of making the patient and the family feel that he has all the time in the world to spend with them –they have no idea that he has six more home visits to do.  His careful touch, his undivided attention, his deep listening, his affirming comments are all the epitome of what a home visit should be.  He listens and draws

Dr. Raj conducting a home visit, Trivandrum Southern India

Dr. Raj conducting a home visit, Trivandrum Southern India

out information to help him tweak the treatment plan based on what has happened since the previous home visit.  As he leaves, he has given not only some medicines and ordered some more physical therapy but he has also given the family and the patient dignity, respect, and acknowledgment through his manner, his interactions, and his presence.

And, of course, as we make it back to the van, it’s time for Dr. Raj to write page after page of notes so the follow-up treatments can be done and so the next home visitor can pick up right where he left off.

 

Global Health TV Looks at CFHI Program In India

Global Health TV, based in London, recently visited one of CFHI’s Community Health Projects in India. The Catch Them Young Program is a health education program directed at youth ages 12-19 in a rural area outside the city of Pune. This is one example of a typical CFHI Community Health Project that originates at the local level and therefore has local ownership. CFHI has been happy to provide some of the funding to advance this project and to support the great dedication that local health professionals and community workers have to their own underserved communities.

The 5 minute short film can be seen on the Global Health TV website.  We have posted it to the CFHI YouTube Channel as well.   It also shows one of CFHI’s Global Health Immersion Programs in India. CFHI seeks to identify local community health professionals who are dedicated to local underserved  communities.

GHTV Feature of CFHI Community Health Project Computer View

GHTV Feature of CFHI Community Health Project in India

These unsung heroes are local experts and CFHI works with them to develop the 4-12 week Global Health Immersion Programs that international students of the health professions attend. The programs are empowering to the local community as the community sees their own health professionals instructing and mentoring international students. The film had its debut at the Canadian Conference on Global Health in Ottawa, November 1-3, 2010.

CFHI Convenes Forum on the Empowerment of Women

CFHI is proud to convene a Forum on the Empowerment of Women to be held at the United Nations Church Center on September 15, 2010, in conjunction with the opening of the 65th Session of the United Nations General Assembly.

Symbol fpr MFG Number 3 The Forum, entitled Successes and Challenges of Women in Leadership Roles in Traditionally Male-Dominated Environments, is an effort to shed light on the global effort to achieve Millennium Development Goal Number Three.

In government and NGO organizations worldwide, women are increasingly taking on leadership roles.  What are women finding as they assume these roles?  From the grassroots level to the executive level, women are succeeding in roles heretofore held only by men.  Are there common experiences across these different levels?  Are there common challenges?  What cultural issues need to be considered?  What strategies are most successful?

Join the audience along with a distinguished panel including CFHI Medical Director, Jessica Evert, MD, and direct from New Delhi, CFHI India Coordinator, Hema Pandey, as these topics and others are discussed in this lively forum.  Gain insights and share your own story.  Join us September 15th at 1:00 PM at 777 UN Plaza (44th Street between 1st  and 2nd Avenues) 8th floor, Boss Room.  The forum is free and open to the general public but we do ask that you RSVP.   Please click here to see more information here and the email address to RSVP.

The Great Asian Tsunami Five Years Later

The anniversary of the great Asian Tsunami is December 26th.  Do you remember where you were on that day in 2004?

The effects of the huge earthquake, estimated at 9.1 or greater, and resulting tsunami were devastating.  Some reports say that about a quarter million people in some eleven countries,  lost their lives, almost in an instant.  For those who were left, they not only had to deal with the grief and loss but also with the fact that their lives and livelihood would be forever changed.  Many made their living off the sea and now the trauma of this event made it hard for them to comfortably return to their work.Tsunami Map India 26-12-2004

CFHI’s loyal donors and alumni were quick to respond.  Within 48 hours, we had connected with other international organizations and had a disaster relief container with supplies for 10,000 people, on the ground in one of the worst hit areas in Indonesia.  Our donors continued to give.  We let people know that CFHI did not have any programs in the areas that were directly impacted and suggested several other organizations to which to donate.  Many of our donors still wanted to give to CFHI, they said that they trusted CFHI to find the best way to use the donations.  So after helping with the immediate disaster response, we started doing our homework.

With many programs in India, CFHI was asked to help in the areas of Southern India that were greatly impacted.  CFHI met with local and WHO health officials by conference calls.  There was great concern that widespread disease would be one of the effects of the tsunami so we were asked to wait while health officials conducted surveillance to see where disease would most likely occur, along that portion of the Indian coastline.  As it turned out, preventative efforts held disease in check so we began looking for other lasting effects of the tsunami.  For young children, the trauma was the most significant lasting effect.  In a number of small coastal fishing villages, much was lost including the schools.  One of the most important things to help children dealing with trauma, is to reestablish a routine that is safe and comforting to them.  With the loss of the schools, there was a big hole in the day of every child.  CFHI teamed-up with the service organization Round Table India –that was charged by the Indian Government with rebuilding the lost schools.  CFHI’s donors were able to support the rebuilding of two schools that were lost in the tsunami, thus reestablishing this most significant daily routine for many children.

Sewing Class at Kovalam

Sewing Class at Kovalam

Some of CFHI’s donors have continued to donate to make sure that efforts to help those so devastated by the tsunami would not fade away.  As this fifth anniversary approaches, CFHI is happy to be continuing in this effort.  Loyola College in Chennai started an outreach program to provide ongoing assistance to people affected by the tsunami.  A successful community college effort has been established and is training people in skills to help them find jobs in many fields including culinary work and food service for the tourist industry, website design, mechanical work on air conditioning and refrigeration systems, etc.  In addition, the Kovalam Community College is providing general courses in English, general life skills, health education, and working with the large population of widows created by the tsunami doing women’s empowerment workshops and helping the widows develop their skills. Kovalam_Community College

During my visit to India earlier this month, I met Fr. Xavier Vedam, S.J. the Vice Principal of Loyoal College in Chennal and the Director of the Loyola Outreach program.  I was very impressed with these efforts by local students volunteering to help in the villages that continue in their recovery from the devastating events of December 26 2004. I was struck by the passion of Fr. Vedam and the fact that they are not giving up but continuing to provide services, engaging the community, and helping people in real ways.   To see that many people are now in gainful employment and that the self confidence and attitude of people in whole villages have been so positively impacted, is a wonderful accomplishment and we applaud these ongoing efforts that bring development based on the strengths of the local people.

Fr. Vedam and Students at Kovalam

Fr. Vedam and Students at Kovalam

From Untouchable to Breadwinner, From a Human Waste Disposal Problem to Useable Fertilizer: A Sanitation and Public Health Success Story

Human waste is always a strange topic to talk about but it is clear that sanitation is one of the biggest public health challenges.  The idea of a Toilet Museum may bring a laugh but I was introduced to an organization that, while understanding the lighter side of the issue, has taken this subject very seriously.  “This is nothing short of amazing work,” reports CFHI India Coordinator, Hema Pandey, as she has made it an important part of CFHI’s Public Health and Community Medicine Program in New Delhi.  Students also report that this experience is very enlightening to them.   It is all the great work of an organization called Sulabh International, an NGO based here in New Delhi, that has for all practical purposes, solved a problem as old as the human race: how to effectively manage human waste.  Moreover, they have done it in one of the poorest and most populated countries in the world.  At the heart of it, was the desire to free the Scavengers, a caste of Indian society who, for as long as anyone can remember, were relegated to cleaning the excrement of others and carrying it in buckets on their heads, therefore being considered untouchable.

CFHI Students Visiting Sulabh International in New Delhi

CFHI Students Visiting Sulabh International in New Delhi

Sulabh is nothing short of a movement, started by Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak.  Dr. Pathak’s outstanding accomplishments can be summed up in two areas, a new technology for waste management and a social revolution for more than a million people to whom society gave no hope for self-determination.

The technology is alarmingly simple.  Sulabh’s design of a two-pit, pour flush toilet is an appropriate, affordable, environmentally sound, and culturally acceptable technology.  Many United Nations groups including WHO and UNDP have recommended this technology for more than 2.6 billion people in the world.  Essentially the pits are constructed in such a way that one side can be used and filled over about a three-year period.  Once it is filled, you switch to the second pit.  Over the next three years, the pit design allows for the natural breakdown of the waste in the first pit so that after the three year period, the pit can be opened revealing a dried substance with no harmful bacteria, that is 100% recyclable as a high qulaity fertilizer.  This design is perfect for rural areas but Dr. Pathak has taken it to the next step by designing a process of dealing with large-scale public toilets.  In this process, bio gas is generated in significant portions to power lighting, heating, cooking, and electricity.

CFHI Students visiting Sulabh International

Receiving Instruction on 2-Pit Toilet System at Sulabh

Dr. Pathak is credited with changing the mindset of the Indian people about sanitation and the persons who were required to do the sanitation work.  He has done this by example. He went to live among Scavengers learning the affects of the life they were considered destined to and thereby designing a social movement to raise them out of poverty and their unacceptable destiny.  Sulabh has schools, training centers and successful assistance programs that are training former Scavengers for everything from light industry, to culinary and food service jobs, and all aspects of computer technology.

This is a terrific success story, making great progress for health as well as a wonderful human story, and one that definitely gets the attention of our students.

CFHI Expands Rural Program in Himalayan Region of India

CFHI’s program in rural areas of Northern India will expand in 2010 and our student programs will support a local doctor’s dream of increasing access to healthcare in this region.  Dr. U.S. Paul has been working in the surrounding areas for many years and he knows well the needs of the people in rural villages.  We are happy to help him in this new effort to serve thousands more people in the foothills of the Himalayas who have little or no access to healthcare.  The effort is being conducted by a local nonprofit, the Indian Global Health and Education Forum.  The village of Sirasu will be one of the areas served.  The villages are accessible on foot after crossing the great river.  This photo shows the crossing point at Gullar on the River Ganges, about 45 minutes drive north of Rishikesh.

Ganges Crossingpoint at Gullar

Ganges Crossing Point at Gullar

As we made the drive along mountain roads tracing the edge of the gorge, with sheer drop-offs right next to you that are not for the faint of heart, Dr. Paul spoke of his excitement at being able to operate regular health camps for this remote population.  The area around Sirasu is one of several village groupings that will be served  Sirasu and its grouping have a population of about 1,500 people.  Each village has its own identity and Dr. Paul is an expert at providing care that is respectful of the cultural differences that may exist even from village to village.

Crossing to the East side of the river Ganges in a simple rowboat, I looked over and saw Dr. Paul beaming with joy because he knows how important these services are to the people.

Crossing Ganges

Crossing The River Ganges --Mr. Mayank Vats, CFHI Local Coordinator, and Dr. U.S. Paul board a boat to cross to the East side of the Ganges river

Once across the river, it is a 20-30 minute hike up the East side of the gorge to Sirasu.  Dr. Paul meets with village leaders to discuss recent developments.  An initial camp was held in November during which Dr. Paul saw more than 150 people in one day.  The people ask Dr. Paul to schedule the camps as often as possible.  With many other villages to cover, Dr. Paul says he will plan to make monthly visits.  While they would wish for more, the people are very happy and express their gratitude.

Local School that serves as a site for the health camp

Local School that serves as a site for the health camp

The camps are conducted at the few local schools as these are natural gathering points and are the largest structures around.

Everything is built on relationships.  The local formalities of introductions and meetings to discuss the different aspects are a time  to build trust and gain the valuable support of village leaders.  These meetings over cups of tea are important times to size everyone up and get a feel for each other.  It is the oral culture’s way of completing an application form.

Every meeting has to have tea

Every meeting has to have tea

We look forward to these additions to our program and to developing these new relationships.

After meeting with local leaders of Sirasu to discuss health camps

After meeting with local leaders of Sirasu to discuss health camps

CFHI Program Spotlight: Sight for All

One of CFHI’s newest programs, Sight for All- Ophthalmology Rotation is unique in that it is based out of just one organization- a local NGO located in New Delhi, India. CFHI participants rotate through the various departments, learning how programs and treatment are implemented to reduce preventable visual handicaps. Participants are exposed to mobile eye care clinics, ophthalmic procedures in the operating theater, and take part in advanced level classes at the institute.

The Sight for All program recently had its first participant, Melanie Mamon, and she shares a report on her experiences.  To learn more about the program’s location, arrival dates, and clinical sites, click here.