Category Archives: Health Education

Education, General interest, Health Education, Rose News

Rose Charities Canada Jan 2013 Project Forum

Dr Andrew Macnab. Expert on Health promoting schools

and founder Brighter Smiles Africa

An amazing group of people attended the Jan 2013 Rose Charities Canada Project Forum of varied interests and backgrounds and organizations.  A comment from one of the participants summarized it well ‘I cant believe the amount of shere competence and expertise present in this room this evening;   The meeting was held again at Creekside Community Centre. False Creek, Vancouver

This year the format was slightly different.  instead of fixed presentations the concept was to more to generate debate, comment and constructive participation.  In the first half Will Grut of Rose International summarized the network in an individual presentation but invited the various project groups to update as their projects were presented.  In the second half a panel consisting of Dr Andrew Macnab ( www.brightersmilesafrica.ca ) ,  Dr Ruth Brighouse and Annette Borkent  (www.safemotherhoodproject.org ) facilitated discussion using aspects of their excellent projects to focus on particular issues.

Food, sushi, dips, cakes, cookies and coffee were kindly provided by some of the participants, notably Dr Diana Carter (UBC Psychiatry Dept)

Attendees concentrate on a presentation

Notable attendees in addition to those mentioned above, were  Ms Sue Ishii  www.amdacanada.org , Nicole Schouela, Honey Halpern and a team from www.standtalleducation.org  ,  Prof. Jane Roskams of the The Ha Mpiti Project/Mathabo Leadership Academy Project, Lesotho,  Liz Moss  of  Proyecto San Gerardo Costa Rica, Luke King  of Rose Madagascar   www.rosecanada.info/madagascar/  Will Grut represented Roses Cambodia and Vietnam  www.rosecambodia.org   www.rosevietnam.org  and Dr Yoga Yogendran of Rose Sri Lanka Committee  www.rosesrilanka.info . International Counsellor (original organizer of 2005 Rose Tsunami post traumatic counselling program) Yaya de Andrade ( see   http://rosecharities.blogspot.ca/2009/12/impact-of-disasters-on-children-by-dr.html )  attended as well as Emily McCance and
Pierre Etienne Banville
of the Rose Social Enterprise Committee  (see https://rosecharities.org/2012/11/social-enterprise-seminar-vancouver/ ) . The Hillman Fund www.hmef.info were well represented by  Dr Joanne Young and Mr Craig Keeting , as were International Health Initiatives, Juliette  www.internationalhealthinitiatives.com .  Dr Ellen Coburn of  www.mayanproject.org Guatemala school project contributed an excellent update.  Mrs Janice (and husband Dr David) Wensley of the Safe Motherhood Committee of Rose Charities came as did    Rose Charities Canada’s Chair, Maggie Francis and Hon Treasurer Eric Vanderluit   Accountant Kevin Simpson, (who carries out pivotal accounting  work for Rose Canada) as did a fellow accountant and Rose supporter,   Richard McCallum

Dr Ruth Brighouse and Anne Borkent of Safe Motherhood

Guatemala

The atmosphere of the meeting was stimulating, creative and constructive. Discussions ranged around many areas though focusing on transfer of training and teaching schools.  Such skills transfer is very much the focus of the projects (Birthing attendant skills Guatemala and Health Promotion in Uganda) .  The Rose Charities network is now fairly broad as well as deep and the forum allowed organizers from dispersed parts of it to meet and exchange ideas.

A big thank you to Maggie Francis (Chair Rose Charities Canada) and Linda Roberts(Rose International Hon Sec)  for much of the structuring of the meeting.

 

Education, General interest, Health Education, Healthcare, Rose News

Cambodia Medical Elective program upgraded..

The PPSC Rose Medical Elective Program is newly established although Rose has had experience in providing a medical elective program in the past. Our star Surgeon, Dr Nous Sarom has moved to become the Head of Surgery at the Preah Mettokelea Surgical Centre (PPSC) at the Military Hospital in Phnom Penh. Dr Sarom has had a long history with Rose and we have adapted our program to follow this wonderful surgeon and teacher. The Program is now being administered by Ms Sophak Chim who has excellent organisational skills and fantastic written English. She is managing our complicated schedule and ensuring that students receive communication from Cambodia upon receiving their email enquiries. Obviously being a new program there will be teething problems but we hope that the program will evolve to be a leading elective program in Cambodia, especially with the assistance of great feedback from the students!  … read more…

General interest, Health Education, Rose News

Sight-saving truck for Cambodia: with love from NZ !

Rose Charities NZ has donated the funds for a truck to Rose Cambodia Eye/Sight Centre for their outreach program.  Collecting for the truck was primarily orchestrated by Mr Mike Webber, Optometrist and Rose Laureate 2009,  of Wanganui  who worked tirelessly to see the project through. In Mach 2012 a fundraser was held  (
http://www.wanganuichronicle.co.nz/news/truck-in-sight-after-eye-fundraiser/1293047/) which hosted over 110 people and, thanks to the Wanganui attendees,  raised over $NZ5000. The remainder was donated with huge generosity by a private NZ Foundation which specifically targets international projects which have outstanding cost effectiveness (as the Eye Centre does) .

The Rose Cambodia Sight Centre / Eye Clinc has now been operating since 1997, some 15 years (at the time of writing). It has treated well over 100,000 Cambodians the majority of who have been extremely poor, giving them free or low cost blindness preventing treatments or restoring sight mainly through cataract operations.
Many of the techniques for low cost eye surgery have historically been thanks to great New Zealanders such as Ray Avery or Fred Hollows so the centre carries on a  a long and distinguished NZ history
Rose Charities New Zealand’s relationship with the Cambodia Sight Centre was initiated by John Veale (Optometrist Christchurch) in the year 2000 who then introduced Mike Webber and Dr David Sabiston (retired). The three have spent over a decade working with Drs Hang (clinic co founder) and Natalia Vra suppling materials, equipment, and most importantly of all, their considerable expertise to help bring the clinic to the leading eye Centre it is today in Cambodia.
In recent years, outreach programs for village level screening and eye care promotion have played an increasingly important role. Some of the roads to the villages become almost impassable in the wet season so a strong vehicle is needed, both for access and to be able to return patients to the clinic.
The truck is a fantastic gift, so needed: it will be pivotal in the continuation and expansion of delivery of high quality eye care to poor Cambodians.   Thank you Wanganui and other generous donors !
Community Support, Education, Health Education, Healthcare

A Tale of Two Women (and thousands of lives saved… !)


This is the story of two women.  One woman uses a piece of clean string and a clean razor blade.   With  it she saves,  scores, hundreds, probably thousands of lives. The people she saves are mothers and their babies. The mothers have given birth where there is no medical assistance.  Lack of hygiene, lack of knowledge, even some traditional practices in severing the umbilical cord provide the fertile conditions for infection. Sometimes mud or even cow dung are used to apply to the raw ends of the cord.  The clean string is used simply to tie the cord and the sterile blade to cut it. .

Now the woman makes up cheap kits. They simply contain instructions, soap, sterile string and blade and some.  All it takes to save two lives is a clean pad, soap, razor blade, a length of string and a set of illustrated instructions.  Each kit will save 2 lives.  The kits are quietly  distributed to where they are needed thoughout the world.

The other woman who follows the same path. She travels to rural Central America with a small team to carry the same simple message and taking also, birthing kits with her.   Year after year she returns and year after year she finds more women who, having seen the results of what she has been teaching others, wish to learn. Her course lasts 4 days. The woman  educates child birth attendants to wash their hands. Thousands of women die every year because of not doing this. She educates them in the simple things that will save.

Both women know that 820,000 women die because of  childbirth every year; 99% of them are in developing countries.  They know that, worldwide, a woman dies in childbirth every 40 seconds.  They know that three quarters of the 4 million babies who die every year could be saved by simple interventions. They know that so many women simply have no access to safe medical facilities (in Bangladesh for example only 9% of births take place in clinics or hospitals)   They know the grief and suffering of so many families through these events.

So quietly, simply, they have rolled up sleeves and helped.  No full spread media campaigns, no double-space TV ads, no fleets of white SUV’s, no first-class  ‘celebrity spokesperson’ visits. They just do it themselves, unsung heroes, quietly saving lives…

1)   http://wordbirthaid.org
2)   http://safemotherhoodproject.org

Health Education

Third Nursing Course in Haiti

We recently completed a third nursing course for nurses and doctors in Haiti which was incredibly successful. We also managed to send equipment for the hospital as well as new text books for the nursing students. Madame Duvilaire (General Secretary of the Haitian Nurses Association) wrote to us saying: “The EINDPS, Jeremie (a town outside Port-au-Prince) has received the books from Rose Charities and the dean, the teachers and the students are very delighted. EINDPS School of nursing thank specially Rose Charities for this donation who will help 140 students and their teachers give better care and receive updated instead of outdated instructions”. We are already planning another course for 2012 which will continue our support of the Haitian nursing Association after the Haitian earthquake.