So we had a wonderful success yesterday. The event went incredibly well and was quite an experience. Both Gary and I finished the 50 mile race, surprisingly feeling quite well. We came in just over 9 hours. Some minor blisters, cramps, cuts, scrapes, muscle burning, fatigue, exhaustion, and some major hunger. But otherwise we felt better than we had expected. I believe that any bit of suffering is important for people to feel when we live in such a comfortable part of this world, and are fortunate enough to have been created here. For a cause like this, it is never really enough, but is necessary. It helps to be a little crazy and have some internal drive to want to run any great distance, but it was truly amazing watching how seriously each of the teams were and to see the determination in the runners, organizers and supporters.

It was also amazing to see how much this event grew in just one year. We had some incredible support and organization from classmates. Our EMT, Audrey, rode her bike within yelling distance from us for the entire course. One of our primary organizers, Brianna, drove the course multiple times setting up the event, and was our lead car for our fluids, food, and support throughout. My wife, Lynn, after running 11 miles in the beginning, ran another 6 miles with us towards the end just to coach us along. So many family and friends were out supporting us, lots of food at the end, and all of the training that people put into running was such a joy to see. All of this for one reason: To help other people who need our support.

A crew of bikers passed us a number of times, and one of them asked what we were doing, and why we were running further than they were biking. Lynn explained the story, and one of them pulled out a plastic bag and handed her eight crumpled up dollar bills in the middle of a rain shower somewhere around mile twenty-seven.

Anyway, back to studying. We will keep the firstgivings.com/44 site open for another month. We wish you all well.

Dante

A CGA is defined by the American Council on Gift Annuities as “a way to make a gift to your favorite charity, and still receive an income for yourself or others…in return for a transfer of cash or other property (the charity) agrees to pay a fixed sum of money for a period measured by one or two lives.”

What will the lower rate mean? Although payments are based on a number of factors – including the value of the contribution, the number of annuitants, and the age(s) of the annuitant(s) – here’s one example:

A 70-year-old funds a $25,000 single annuitant CGA. If he does so by June 30, he qualifies for a 6.5% annuity rate, providing $1,625 a year. If he waits until July 1 or later, the same CGA will have an annuity rate of 6.1% and resulting payments will be $100 less every year for the remainder of the annuitant’s life. (The downside? The amount of the charitable tax deduction also declines on July 1, in this case from $9,038 to $7,991.)

For more information, including the numerous benefits to this type of planned gift, see Charitable Gift Annuities on the Rhode Island Foundation website and/or contact Ray Rickman at (401) 421-0606 or ray@adoptadoctor.org.

On April 27, 2008 Dante Leven and Gary Simmons will be running a 50 mile loop in the area of the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine (UNECOM), in Biddeford, Maine, to raise money for Adopt a Doctor. With the effort of these individuals, Adopt a Doctor hopes to sponsor several more doctors in some of the poorest areas of the world and ensure that healthcare services are maintained there.

Adopt a Doctor, a 501(c) (3) non-profit organization based in Providence, RI, has identified and selected four of the world’s poorest nations, Sierra Leone, Mali, Malawi, and Liberia, from which doctors are leaving due to poor compensation and a lack of resources. We offer financial aid and other critical support for physicians in these countries, so they can stay and save thousands of lives.

As this is the second year of this successful fundraising effort, Dante and Gary have chosen to go further in an effort to raise even more money for these impoverished communities. The 50 miles being run by our fundraisers reflects the incredible distances people around the world travel just to obtain basic medical care.

“After running the New York City Marathon in 2006 I remember finishing the race thinking that I wanted to keep going farther. The next day, still in a foggy daze, I heard Ray Rickman speak about global health at UNECOM. During the speech I felt this odd mixture of being exhausted, dazed, but energized. In Ray’s speech, he mentioned the distance that people travel just to obtain healthcare in certain parts of Africa - 44 miles - and a little light bulb appeared above my head. I saw it with my own eyes. I ran home that night, told my wife, and you know the rest…”

- Dante Leven, MSII, UNECOM student and co-organizer of the 50 mile run to benefit Adopt a Doctor

Contributions of any level are greatly appreciated to support their effort, and can be made safely and securely through FirstGiving, a website that has been created especially for this purpose. The link to the page is http://www.firstgiving.com/44

Dr. Roger LeBrun, Professor of Entomology at the University of Rhode Island, has long had an interest in global health issues. He has recently agreed to help fund raise for the event, a ‘Run for Global Health,’ and recruited the efforts of 15 bright, hardworking pre-med students. Dr. LeBrun’s students, who are currently enrolled in his honors class “The Global Challenge of Emerging Infectious Disease,” have been learning about the fight to battle diseases in the countries helped by Adopt a Doctor, and saw this fundraising effort as a direct way to make a difference. The Professor, along with the help of his students, are determined to raise the $1,600 necessary for Adopt a Doctor to sponsor a new doctor within the program. They will work to promote the message of Adopt a Doctor, and support the efforts of University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine students Dante Leven and Gary Simmons; who will be running a 50 mile course to raise funds.

Elie Wiesel is the author of more than forty books, including his unforgettable international best sellers Night and A Beggar in Jerusalem, winner of the Prix Medicis. He has been awarded the Presidentail Medal of Freedom, the United States Congressional Gold Medal, and the French Legion of Honor with the rank of Grand Cross. In 1986, he received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Editorial Review From Bookmarks Magazine
Starting with Night (1958), Wiesel, who survived the Nazi concentration camps of Auschwitz and Buchenwald, has testified against Holocaust atrocities and revealed the collective Jewish experience in more than 40 works of fiction and nonfiction. Recipient of the 1986 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts on behalf of oppressed people, Wiesel has become the spokesman for a lost generation. His novel, like his other work, raises moral questions about love, faith, survival, politics, and exile. A few critics thought these themes too diffuse; the disjointed style similarly jarred some. But the consensus is that The Time of the Uprooted is an artful, redemptive, and ultimately humbling exploration of the Holocaust’s lasting emotional impact.

Dr. Wiesel has donated an autographed copy of The Time of the Uprooted to Adopt a Doctor. This copy is now being auctioned, with which 100% of the proceeds will support doctors working in Africa.

Minimum bids start at $25 USD. Auction will end April 28th. Please email your bid to ray@adoptadoctor.org .

Health Minister Marjorie Ngaunjeb said all civil servants affected by the disease would receive an extra $35 a month to help them buy more food.

“We thought [it] would go a long way in improving their nutritional requirements which are essential to their wellbeing,” she told Reuters.

Tens of thousands of Malawians die of Aids every year with about 7% of the 13m population infected.

Another government official said that the extra money should help those with HIV prolong their lives.

Losing large numbers of trained staff is a major problem for the countries worst affected by HIV/Aids, such as Malawi.

The BBC’s Raphael Tenthani in Blantyre says the government is the country’s largest employer with about 120,000 civil servants.

Their monthly salaries average about $70, AFP news agency reports.

After years of silence, the authorities spoke out about the crisis in 2004, when a programme to tackle HIV/Aids was launched.

Then President Bakili Muluzi revealed that his brother had died from the disease.

Last year, the government called on all sexually active people in the country to take an Aids test.

The UN estimates that 80% of people with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa do not know they have the virus.

Click here to read the article on the BBC Website

The bank converted this amount to Malawi Kwacha (MWK) -rate: $1.00= MWK 138.3706,

total MKW 163,969.16

(In the following calculations the amounts are rounded now to full MKW without the decimal point)

The bank took a commission of 1%=MKW 1639.00.

MKW 163,969.00 -1639.00 = MKW 162,330.00. These divided by 6. Each clinician received

MKW 27.055.00

Thank you for your support.

Sincerely

Dr. Mordechai Gemer

The trauma service is extremely busy because of the high accident rate. We see an average of 20 truma patients a day and admit over 700 severely injured multi system trauma cases a year. Over 5000 major general surgical cases a year are operated on.

The attending staff has been augmented by aid from western countries (mainly volunteers from the US) volunteers from the United Nations and other international volunteer services in the last 4 years. Before this there was only one consistent general surgeon with minimal short term assistance from concerned countries (mainly the US). Four general surgeons, two urologist
and recently an orthopaedic surgeon now comprise the attending staff.

The bottleneck in departmental performance is in the support clinicians staff who will handle a busy trauma service 24 hours a day, attend to critical care beds, assist in the operating rooms, attent to out patient and ward services. This is shared by six clinicians who have agreed to commit themselves to handle all the phases of activity of the department at their level. The arrangement has been providing consistent reliable coverage of the department especially during this year.

Enclosed are some pictures of the different departmental activities of KCH these 6 clinicians are handling.

Thank you very much for your continuous support.

Sincerely yours,

Arturo P. Muyco, MD
Head, Department of Surgery

DAKAR, Senegal, July 24 — Despite a thicket of troubles, from deadly illnesses like AIDS and malaria to corrupt politicians and deep-seated poverty, a plurality of Africans say they are better off today than they were five years ago and are optimistic about their future and that of the next generation, according to a poll conducted in 10 sub-Saharan countries by The New York Times and the Pew Global Attitudes Project.

The results offer an unusual and complex portrait of a continent in flux — a snapshot of 10 modern African states as they struggle to build accountable governments, manage violent conflict and turn their natural resources into wealth for the population.

It found that in the main, Africans are satisfied with their national governments, and a majority of respondents in 7 of the 10 countries said their economic situation was at least somewhat good. But many said they faced a wide array of difficult and sometimes life-threatening problems, from illegal drug trafficking to political corruption, from the lack of clean water to inadequate schools for their children, from ethnic and political violence to deadly disease.

Face-to-face interviews were conducted in April and May with 8,471 adults in Ethiopia, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda. The survey sampled nationwide adult populations, except in South Africa, where the sample was completely urban, and Ivory Coast, where it was disproportionately urban and tended to be in areas sympathetic to the government. The margins of sampling error were plus or minus either three or four percentage points.

The results showed that the struggle for democracy and good governing in Africa is more like a patchwork of gains and setbacks than a steady tide of progress across a continent that has suffered some of the worst instances of misrule. While all of the countries polled are nominally democracies, half of them have suffered serious rollbacks of multiparty representational government in recent years. A majority in each country said corrupt political leaders were a big problem.

The most recent elections in Ethiopia and Uganda were marred by violence and the exclusion of major candidates, and failed to meet international standards of fairness; they were considerable setbacks for two countries that a decade ago were seen as rising examples of Africa’s democratic future.

Electoral trouble has even tinged Senegal, often seen as a beacon in the volatile West African region because it has never had a coup and has a long tradition of democracy. This year, opposition parties boycotted legislative elections there over accusations of election fraud.

In Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation and top oil producer, the poll results reflect frustration with the way elections are carried out — 67 percent of Nigerians said that their presidential election was not conducted fairly. Presidential and local elections in April were so badly marred by fraud and violence that the European Union called them not credible. Asked if they were generally satisfied or dissatisfied with the way things were going in their country, 87 percent of those interviewed for the survey said they were dissatisfied. Yet Nigerians were the most optimistic of all the nations surveyed — 69 percent said they expected that children growing up in Nigeria would be better off than people today.

“It expresses a huge challenge for democracy in Africa,” said Peter M. Lewis, director of African Studies at Johns Hopkins University and an author of the Afrobarometer, a public opinion survey of African attitudes. “We have seen significant strides for democratic liberty and practices in the last 10 or 15 years. It is also a fact that in most of their countries, average citizens have not seen a significant improvement in their material circumstances and their living condition.”

The economic data in the poll give a mixed picture. A plurality of respondents said that their financial situation had improved in the last five years, with the exception of Ivory Coast, Tanzania and Uganda. Many African economies are growing rapidly as prices for oil, iron ore, copper and timber have risen in recent years — overall gross domestic product growth in Africa last year was 5.7 percent and some countries, like Nigeria, Africa’s largest oil producer, have seen much higher growth.

But more resource wealth has not necessarily led to broad prosperity. Of the respondents in Nigeria, 82 percent said average people were not benefiting from the country’s oil wealth.

Salimata Mbengue, a 21-year-old shopkeeper in Ngor, a village at the edge of Dakar, said that she had high hopes for the future of her business but was very worried about the current economic situation of her family.

“I have five brothers, and only two are employed,” she said, sitting outside the small convenience store where she sells sodas, candy, biscuits and cartons of milk. “Our parents are retired, and we have to support them. I am hopeful, but it is very hard to get ahead here.”

The spread of infectious diseases like AIDS is seen as a very big problem by a large majority of the respondents in every country polled. More than half of the 40 million people infected with H.I.V. live in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the United Nations, and Africa accounted for 65 percent of new infections in 2006.

Yet few respondents in all the countries polled said they had been tested for H.I.V., ranging from 4 percent in Ghana to 27 percent in Kenya and Ethiopia. Still, a considerable majority of respondents in each country were either willing to be tested, or already had been.

Other health concerns weighed heavily on most respondents. Getting access to clean drinking water was seen as a big problem for a majority in all 10 countries, ranging from 86 percent in Ethiopia to 58 percent in urban South Africa. About half or more in eight countries said that they had been unable to pay for medical care.

But hunger seemed less of a problem — a majority of respondents in all but Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania said that they had enough money to buy food their family needed.

Large majorities said poor-quality schools were a major problem, and many respondents said it was harder to provide an education for their children than to get food for them.

The poll also measured African attitudes to the United States and found that on the whole, 8 of the 10 countries surveyed said they viewed it as a dependable ally. They showed little of the anti-American sentiment that has dominated polls of public opinion in recent years, but some countries had negative views of American culture — 82 percent of Tanzanians, two-thirds of Senegalese and about half of the Ghanaians, Malians and Kenyans surveyed.

Oumar Diallo, a 27-year-old unemployed plumber in Dakar, said that his Muslim faith made him uneasy with some aspects of American culture. “For us Muslims, we have certain values and ways of conducting ourselves that is different than America,” he said. “America is hard towards Muslims.”

Click here to read the article on the New York Times

Despite local estimates suggesting the HIV prevalence rate remains close to 50%, it is possible to find signs of hope for the village of Njoho in its ongoing struggle with Malawi’s HIV/Aids pandemic.

Last year, Sister Josephine of the Nsanama Convent was pessimistic, warning of villagers’ fatalism in the face of HIV/Aids.

“Too often, they have anger in their hearts and voluntarily destroy their and other people’s lives by behaving as if nothing has changed,” she said.

Six months later, Sister Josephine’s outlook is more comforting. “What I find positive now is the awareness of needs among the leaders, the sense of family in the community,” she tells me. “The children now no longer feel shy to say: ‘I am an orphan.’ People want to help each other.”

Burden

She means people like shopkeeper Lazarao Chitimble and his wife Juliane, who are raising HIV /Aids orphans together with their own four children.

Last October, Mr Chitimble had adopted four orphans. When I arrive at his small store next to Njoho’s main market, I discovered the number has risen to five. The shopkeeper must now supplement his takings with extra casual labour to pay for his family’s needs. “It’s a burden to bring up so many,” he says. “But we see no difference between the children we take in and the ones that were born to us.”

In 2005, Chief Ajasi Mphawa was ruing the day he became head of Njoho. Today, he proudly talks of running twice monthly community meetings to monitor how families are coping with HIV/Aids. “We have had training in how to avoid the disease and how to care for our orphans,” he says.

These meetings inspired Njoho parents to set up the day-care centre for young children highlighted in last October’s gallery. Out of the playgroup’s 92 children, 41 have lost their parents. Sadly, I soon learned that every heart-warming story in Njoho is followed by a reminder of the cold reality of everyday life.

Orphaned twice

The day before my visit, Margaret Gunde, 21, was laid to rest in Njoho’s ever-growing cemetery. It seems like yesterday that Margaret had sat on the veranda of her hut, and told the story of her mother’s death from tuberculosis in 1999.

Aged 14, Margaret had been left to care for her brother and sister with little more than her late mother’s “advice on how to look after my siblings.” Now, I wonder, who will advise her own daughter, seven year-old Chifuniro, as well as sister Judy, aged 14, and brother Hope, 17?

The death of their older sister has left Judy and Hope orphaned for a second time. “Margaret took the same care of us that a mother would give,” says Judy, holding a photograph of her sister. “Now I don’t know how we will live.”

Illness

Late last year, Sister Josephine persuaded local chiefs to donate land so HIV/Aids-affected families like Judy’s could grow food. “There was great enthusiasm,” she says. “Then people began experiencing the real problems of HIV/Aids: the high number of sick adults and young orphans, who cannot work in the fields.”

Until recently, Njoho’s efforts to stem the spread of HIV were hampered by a lack of adequate medical facilities. The local Nsanama Catholic Hospital is not equipped to give HIV tests or distribute anti-retroviral drugs. Instead, out-patients with Aids-related diseases are sent to a district hospital 10 km away. Most villagers cannot even afford the bus fare.

But in a further sign of a community fighting back, Nsanama will this month launch a new HIV/Aids programme introducing voluntary counselling and testing for HIV, a clinic for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission, and free transportation to an anti-retroviral clinic.

Zione Kaunda has one concern: how will she and her two fellow nurses handle the extra workload? The antenatal clinic alone receives more than 180 patients per day.

Education

Juliana Kantazi, the deputy headmistress at Njoho’s primary school, believes a long-term solution to the HIV/Aids pandemic lies in education rather than medicine - but the disease continues to deny access to the very pupils in need of awareness training.

One-third of her school’s 746 pupils are orphans; many abandon their studies so they can take casual labour to help support their families. “If we see that a child has stopped coming to school, we go to their homes to see the reason,” says Ms Kantazi.

Dorothy Yasin, 51, confesses that she has sometimes pulled her three grandchildren out of school to work her small patch of land. The acre of maize she planted this year failed and her family’s fate rests on a small field of millet. If this harvest is poor, Mrs Yasin, a widow, wonders how she will feed the grandchildren.

In Njoho, poverty leaves no safety net for the chronically ill or elderly.

Adversity

Wathipa Mkushiwa is blind. He relies on his granddaughter, Zione William, 36, for all his needs. To visit the local clinic, he sits on a bicycle pushed by Zione’s husband. The trip takes an hour each way. This year the William family harvested 300kg of maize, enough to last the family of 10 for only three months. They are dependent on WFP food aid for survival.

Yet here again, Njogho brings a story of hope out of adversity. Sheikh Shokoma, the head of Njoho’s Muslim community encourages Muslims and Christians to look after chronically ill neighbours and distribute food. “People here don’t have anything extra,” he says. “But everyone gives a little because they have the compassion to help.”

Click here for the story on the BBC website.