UPDATED 27JAN12
Many thanks for taking the time to visit this JustGiving page.
This charitable endeavour was prompted by and is in loving memory of my wife Debbie who died of pneumonia on 1st May 2009 in Athens, Greece.
Pneumonia is a major cause of death in children (approx 2 million a year). It is the largest killer of children under 5 years old. This is mainly in the poorer nations of Africa and Asia. Further work showed that this is quite a straight forward thing to prevent. So with the help of some great friends I set about doing something.
I am delighted to advise that we have reached the original target to raise £100,000 for SOS Childrens Villages and that these funds will be going to run a mobile medical effort (now named Debbie's bus) in Zambia.
As per the accompanying photos, the bus was delivered in November 2012 and is now active, preventing deaths and helping the children around Chipata as well as their families back to health.
I visited the SOS village, under construction in Chipata, Zambia in November where the bus is housed. There I visited the neighbouring school to which the SOS kids will also go. The school had classrooms, desks and chairs but little paper and few pencils, no school books and no electricity. Less than half the children had any sort of "footwear". They did have beaming smiles and boundless energy, eager to learn and have fun.
I brought with me some atlases, chess sets, footballs and volleyballs (and one rugby ball - one can but try!), items on a fantasy wishlist sent to London by the headmistress. After visiting, I asked her to draw up a list of other things needed - board chalk, paper, pens, wall charts... simple stuff. We went to town and bought what we could find; not enough, but a start...
Returning home I am now upping my original donation target by 10 thousand pounds, to help pay for ongoing maintenance for Debbie's bus and for the school. I hope you will be able to help me raise this and not just continue to save lives in Chipata, but also to help give these survivors a future.
Best wishes
Simon.
Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving - they'll never sell them or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they'll send your money directly to the charity and make sure Gift Aid is reclaimed on every eligible donation by a UK taxpayer. So it's the most efficient way to donate - I raise more, whilst saving time and cutting costs for the charity.
Thank you so much for the donations and making this massive difference.
Details of Chipata Project.
The completion of a fourth SOS Children's Village is imminent. The site is in Chipata, the Eastern Province of Zambia (near the Malawian and Mozambican borders) where 3 in 4 people live on less than a dollar a day, life expectancy is 38, HIV prevalence rate is 16% and 1 in 10 all children have lost both parents. The new children's village will have 12 family houses - each providing a mother and home for 10 orphaned children, ensuring a family for life for generations of children.
The new village will also have a nursery school (plus access to a local primary school, part-funded by SOS) and coordinate an outreach programme to support vulnerable families (mainly child-headed households) in the wider community of Chipata. The outreach programme will work in conjunction with a new medical centre which will also be built on the site of the village. This will provide a comprehensive programme to meet the needs of the most deprived families in Chipata, through educational, income generating, nutritional and medical support to enable family members to improve their health and in time, become self-sufficient.
For those vulnerable families in rural areas who cannot access the medical centre, a mobile unit is urgently needed for home visits. Debbie's bus has now started to help over 8,000 people a year. The unit is staffed with a clinical officer and 2 nurses and provides:
anti-malarial treatments
painkillers
antibiotics, cough medicines and other treatments to mitigate and prevent opportunistic diseases
antiretrovirol drugs (ARVs) and counselling
basic nutritional packs: multivitamins etc
transport for patients who require hospital care
health & hygiene education - prevention as well as treatment
