Sight is one of the most vital aspects to the life of any individual both directly for themselves as well as for their families and communities. Often even simple health and screening measures can prevent, stay or even reverse many degrees of blindness.
Ms Yamuna Ghimire (Demlitar Community)
Rose Charities often supports its impressive partner VTN (Vision Together Nepal) founded by Optometrist, Mr Sakar Subedi. This NGO specializes in travelling to extremely remote villages in hard-to-access areas of Nepal to screen for disease, treat if possible or at a minimum, facilitate transport to a surgical eye center if more complicated procedures are needed. In addition a refraction service can assist in obtaining glasses for a needy patient.
At a recent eye camp in Demilitar Rural Municipality, assistance was given to an excellent local initiative to establish a simple Eye Centre. Trained staff were needed so VTN supported by Rose Charities facilitated training for two village members to be assistants. Ms Yumuna Ghimire (Demlitar Community) and Mr Roshan Dahal (Sindhuli Community) were sponsored to undertake basic optical dispenser training courses.
Further eye center initiatives are planned in rural Nepal for the near future
The Guatemalan Safe Motherhood Project continues to make progress, in spite of the pandemic. We in Canada have been in bimonthly contact via Zoom with our Guatemalan teammates. Because of travel restrictions, teaching in other communities has been replaced with a new clinic, providing prenatal care to local pregnant women and holding prenatal discussion groups, as well as addressing topics beyond pregnancy and birth, including breastfeeding, alcohol and other substance use disorders, domestic violence, nutrition, and supporting teen mothers.
Here in Canada we’ve been having a meeting every 5-6 weeks with a primary focus on trying to find corporate sponsors as well as granting foundations. Our long-term goal is to expand our training courses with more teams. We hope to be able to travel to Guatemala once again in the fall of 2022. Our team will be able to train a number of further trainers to bring our hands-on course to many more remote areas, so as to make a larger impact in fewer years. The need remains huge and more trained teams are needed in order to impact the lives of so many marginalized, poverty-stricken families (primarily indigenous) in Guatemala. With persistence, further funding will allow this.
Rose Charities Canada has sent funds for the Rose Nepal Programs Group under Ms Sarala Adhikari to urgently supply around 3000 medical masks, primarily for people in the Pharping area with a focus on kids. While the protective benefits of mask wearing have become well appreciated in the area, simple lack of having them has been impeding their usage. Great work Nepal Group !
