So Sew Nice!

Michael Lewis, Board Member. reporting:

Our errand in the city seemed like an episode of reality programming: "The Great Sewing Machine Race."  A couple women in the group knew exactly what we were looking for.  The rest of us were just along for the ride.  Hoping, at some point, there would be ice cream.

In and out of stores, we went.  "Nope. Not the right functions."  "Too hard to service."  "Undependable."  We navigated rocky streets and bustling markets like white water rafters.  "Hold on! We're going in!"  Calls of market vendors crashed like waves over the boulders of fruit stands and displays of used tennis shoes as we weaved and surged in search of the safe shores of the perfect sewing machines for our village workshops.

A girl who begins menstruation will drop out of school because sanitary supplies are not available.  One machine and one sewing lesson solves that problem.  Another lesson creates curtains and school shirts.  A few more still provide a woman with a marketable skill and a way to feed her family as a tailor.  

Caring about the details is critical. So is finding the right machines. When we depart, all we leave behind are skills and the tools to implement them.

And a bit of our hearts.

Kindness in Kathmandu

            

         Pinkey Malla with Sanmani Rai in her tent "home"
​

Michelle Mahlik, Board member, reporting:

I first encountered Sanmani Rai when she took pity on me in a Kathmandu church service and shared a precious cough drop. Just a few months later, the 2015 earthquake forced she and her elderly husband to move into the kind of temporary housing that thousands of Nepali people are currently living in. Imagine camping for over a year in the cold Himalayan mountains in a drafty, damp, dark tent, heated only with a few pieces of scavenged wood.  Mrs. Rai makes a living by picking "nettles" and selling them door to door. In America, we consider nettles to be pesky, stinging "weeds", but the Nepali people know that they are filled with nutrients.

 

In her own charming Nepali-English, our healthcare worker tells us how she tenderly watches over Mrs. Rai:

 

"Her neighbor helped her to get call to me. I came to know that she has vomiting the whole day and night yesterday and became so week. Because she is so poor and no money to treatment, immediately I have to go to doctor and I came to know that she got food poison. So I feed her slowly some breakfast and after having medicine, electrolyte now she is OK. She was so scared and cried before but after immediate treatment now she felt so relief. She collect some money by selling some green leafs by going door to door of peoples. They don't have cook stove also and they have to cook by fire in their small tent house."

                                                     Pinkey Malla

Be it Ever so Humble

Michael Lewis, Board member reporting:

Home visits are hard. Smells are foreign.  Conditions are rough, to say the least.  Illness is not pretty.

All of that falls away, or at least falls into place, when our local healthworkers lead the way.  With training and preparation, the Kafwa and Sinkhani, as many are called, kneel, talk, tend, hold, witness, prescribe.  We can teach them, but they must do. Which is how it goes, and how it likely is going right now in a village in Zambia, Malawi, the D.R. Congo, or Nepal.  

They are walking the dirt paths of their townships to visit the sick, to administer evidence-based treatments we have taught them to hydrate sick children or to heal the ever present leg ulcer, to ensure patients are keeping their clinic appointments, or just being kept company.   Others, still, are delivering babies while protecting the health of the mother, the child, and the healthcare worker, again, with skills and tools we provide.  Without the healthworkers, disease and desperation would spread so much quicker. 

Supported by the funding and training of HealthEd Connect, community healthworkers are learning to treat and cure and heal.  The need is so great. 

Our Donors Speak Out

Children at Chipulukusu welcoming
 Sherri and HealthEd Connect Team

You, our donors, are our most important critics.  We love to hear from you!  We recently received this heart-warming and very welcome letter from one of HealthEd Connect's fans:

We have received the most recent HealthEd Connect newsletter and were absolutely blown away by the tremendous impact this small foundation has made in the lives of people in Africa and in Nepal --- and most probably in many other regions and ways we do not know....It must be rewarding to know that those impacted will, in turn, change the lives of so many more.

We so appreciate the feedback -- and the check that was enclosed!

Got 3 Minutes?

Surely you've got 3 minutes!!!

Calling all HealthEd Connect supporters.  We need your help.

Great NonProfits is honoring highly regarded nonprofits with their 2016 Top-Rated List.  If you love HealthEd Connect, please help us raise visibility for our work by posting a brief story of your experience with us.  All content will be visible to potential donors and volunteers. It’s easy and only takes 3 minutes!  Just click here to get started!http://greatnonprofits.org/reviews/write/healthed-connect

P.S.   If you're planning to do this later, it probably won't get done... just sayin'.  

We're Celebrating!

We recently received the following FB message from a donor.  Absolutely made our day!!!

Can you please send me info on how I could designate HealthEd as a beneficiary on my IRA? Not sure what would work as they want a social security number, but I suppose a tax ID would do. I assume it is tax deductible? 

The answer to the question is, "Yes, donations to HealthEd Connect are tax deductible."  If you'd like information on our tax ID on how to include HealthEd Connect in your will or trust, just contact us at info@healthedconnect.org.  

A number of people have already made arrangements to 'pay it forward.'  We'd love to add your name to the list!