The people of Kilkenny and Carlow have been asked to dig deep to raise funds for the Aids orphans of Malawi as a group of volunteers prepares to make the trip to Africa.
Kilkenny woman Michelle Quinn, from Paulstown near the border with Carlow, will travel to the south-east African country with a group of volunteers in a bid to ease the plight of the children left to fend for themselves on the streets.
The group will hold a bridge night in the Springhill Hotel, Kilkenny, next Monday, September 3, to raise funds for St John of God in Mzuzu, Malawi, who run the Venture Malawi initiative.
The hotel has kindly given the fundraisers the use of their ballroom free of charge for the event and a raffle will be held on the night and the card winners will also be announced.
As well as an open section there will be a novice section so players who are just starting can play with players of their own standard and enjoy a social night out for a good cause.
Michelle is hoping with the help of the community she can start to build a bridge between her home and the stricken orphans of Malawi and help save lives.
So far she said the people and businesses of Kilkenny and Carlow have been extraordinarily generous in their response by donating prizes and money to the appeal and to turn everything into cash, cards have been printed and are for sale around the country.
The group will travel as part of the Umsuma Project, a food security programme where families are given loans to buy seeds and fertilizer to produce a crop to sell and repay the loan.
According to Venture Malawi the life expectancy in the country has dropped as low as 36.5 years, five years lower than it was 50 years ago, due to impoverishment.
The Malawi government estimates that more than 14 per cent of the population are HIV positive while unofficial estimates based on private hospital entries suggest 30 per cent HIV infection.
There are more than one million orphans in the country, a majority of these due to Aids deaths, and these children are left on the streets and risk being picked up and abused in a manner of ways.
Thursday, 30 August 2007
Counter makes difference in Africa
Local fundraising helped pay for machine
The three years of fundraising it took to raise $30,000 and buy a CD4 counter AIDS diagnostic machine for the Canadian Medical Clinic in Ngodzi, Malawi are now paying off. “Already we are getting interesting results,” wrote Dr. Chris Brooks to Billy Willbond, president of ICROSS (International Community for the Relief of Starvation and Suffering) Canada. “One or two people have unexpectedly low counts, and therefore need anti-retroviral drugs. Without the counter, they would not have been picked up.”
Brooks thanked Willbond, a Saanichton resident, and the rest of the ICROSS team, for all the work they did to acquire the equipment and bring it personally to Malawi, as Willbond did. “You are, without a question, helping to put Lifeline Malawi on the leading edge of medical work here in Malawi,” Brooks said.
ICROSS Gulf Islands director Mollie Colson, who joined Willbond on that trip to Africa, said that after the purchase of the CD4 counter, it took a lot of garage sales and hundreds of small, local contributions to build up the necessary funds. Willbond said that ICROSS made sure to purchase the machine from a South African medical supply company. “They have technicians and they can repair it, keep it up to date,” he said. “If we bought it in Europe, we could buy it cheaper, but who would service it?”
Willbond explained the ways in which the counter would help fight AIDS: “If you have a machine, it tells you what stage of AIDS they are at and what treatment they neeed,” he said. The clinic can only apply for free supplies of anti-retroviral drugs with the assessment offered by the machine. “You can’t just say ‘I’m treating 5,000 patients a month,’” Willbond said. “With the machine you can prove it. It’ll save lives, especially for those in the first stage.” He said that AIDS fatality rates in Africa are so high because it isn’t caught in time, but with the counter diagnosis will be sped up.
The next fundraising project for ICROSS Canada is a new portable X-ray machine. “We probably won’t be able to buy it overnight,” admitted Willbond, noting that the X-ray machine costs around $50,000. “We’ve got around $400 or $500, but you’ve got to start somewhere.”
The three years of fundraising it took to raise $30,000 and buy a CD4 counter AIDS diagnostic machine for the Canadian Medical Clinic in Ngodzi, Malawi are now paying off. “Already we are getting interesting results,” wrote Dr. Chris Brooks to Billy Willbond, president of ICROSS (International Community for the Relief of Starvation and Suffering) Canada. “One or two people have unexpectedly low counts, and therefore need anti-retroviral drugs. Without the counter, they would not have been picked up.”
Brooks thanked Willbond, a Saanichton resident, and the rest of the ICROSS team, for all the work they did to acquire the equipment and bring it personally to Malawi, as Willbond did. “You are, without a question, helping to put Lifeline Malawi on the leading edge of medical work here in Malawi,” Brooks said.
ICROSS Gulf Islands director Mollie Colson, who joined Willbond on that trip to Africa, said that after the purchase of the CD4 counter, it took a lot of garage sales and hundreds of small, local contributions to build up the necessary funds. Willbond said that ICROSS made sure to purchase the machine from a South African medical supply company. “They have technicians and they can repair it, keep it up to date,” he said. “If we bought it in Europe, we could buy it cheaper, but who would service it?”
Willbond explained the ways in which the counter would help fight AIDS: “If you have a machine, it tells you what stage of AIDS they are at and what treatment they neeed,” he said. The clinic can only apply for free supplies of anti-retroviral drugs with the assessment offered by the machine. “You can’t just say ‘I’m treating 5,000 patients a month,’” Willbond said. “With the machine you can prove it. It’ll save lives, especially for those in the first stage.” He said that AIDS fatality rates in Africa are so high because it isn’t caught in time, but with the counter diagnosis will be sped up.
The next fundraising project for ICROSS Canada is a new portable X-ray machine. “We probably won’t be able to buy it overnight,” admitted Willbond, noting that the X-ray machine costs around $50,000. “We’ve got around $400 or $500, but you’ve got to start somewhere.”
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