Dear colleagues,
My co-directors and I are gearing up for Doctors Day in May.
In the interim, the effects of your previous and on-going contributions are continuing to be implemented by our partners. In Sierra Leone, UNICEF continues to help rehabilitate the badly battered health system- never terrific but hugely further degraded by Ebola.
In March 2015, Bill Gates gave a TED talk on preventing the next Ebola or similar outbreak. Here’s some of what he said;
“What are the key pieces? First, we need strong health systems in poor countries. That’s where mothers can give birth safely, kids can get all their vaccines.”
This is what UNICEF’s work in Sierra Leone is helping to achieve.
In Ethiopia we continue to strongly support surgical efforts to deal with trachoma through our partnership with the Fred Hollows Foundation who trains and employs local surgeons. Here’s a quote from Kebede, one of their young surgeons;
” I consider all the people I operate on as my mothers, sisters and fathers. We share the same culture, the same lifestyle. I understand their problems.”
It is just this type of sentiment that reinforces one of our key messages on the major advantages of “virtual volunteering” advocated by the Twice The Doctor Foundation
(TTD).
Regards to all,
Rob Baume
On behalf of the directors of TTD.
4.3.2016