Seeing the Light

By Alli Sinclair

I’m a glass is half full kinda gal and I like to believe there are more good people in the world than bad. Travelling has always been a great way to test my theory and I’m happy to report, my theory of more good people than bad holds up. I’ve met many, many people willing to give up their time and comforts to go and make a difference in people’s lives, especially in developing countries.

If you asked me to name the most inspirational person who has done wonderful volunteer work and changed the health and welfare of entire communities, there would be no argument--Frederick “Fred” Cossom Hollows wins, hands down.

Born in New Zealand in 1929, Fred Hollows studied ophthalmology and moved to Australia in 1965 where he became an associate professor of ophthalmology at the University of New South Wales. His interest in charity work had been sparked while studying in New Zealand, and when he moved to Australia, Fred travelled to outback Australia and worked with Aboriginal communities. During his time there, he grew concerned about the high incidence of eye disorders amongst the Aboriginal people, especially trachoma (a condition that can be treated with medication).

Fred, his mother, and others set up an Aboriginal Medical Service in Redfern, a suburb of Sydney with a high indigenous population. From this success, they set up similar clinics throughout Australia. He organized the Royal Australian College of Ophthalmologists to establish the National Trachoma and Eye Health Program. Between 1976-1978, Fred and his team visited more than 460 Aboriginal communities, treating 62,000 people. As a result, 27,000 people were treated for trachoma, and another 1,000 received necessary eye operations.

Fred travelled to Nepal in 1985, Eritrea in 1987, and Vietnam in 1991, training local technicians to perform life-changing surgery in remote regions. He organized intraocular lens laboratories in Nepal and Eritrea to provide lenses at cost (around USD9).

Many of the people in these countries suffered blindness that could have been fixed with simple operations. They couldn’t work because they couldn’t see, and it was impossible to travel to large cities to obtain the help they so desperately needed. So Fred and his team visited them and found many of the patients had cataracts that could be removed and the patient could quickly return to work and earn money for their familes. Eye infections were cleared up with short doses of antibiotics and within a short while, Fred and his team changed the lives of many people, and in a lot of cases, entire communities.

In 1992 the Fred Hollows Foundation was formed but unfortunately, only five months later, Fred passed away from cancer. But thanks to the work of his wife, Gabi, and friends and family, the Fred Hollows Foundation has grown to the point where they now work in over 40 countries around the world including the continents of Asia, Australia, Europe, and Africa.

To give an example of the work they do, in 2011 (taken from the Fred Hollows Website), people working with his foundation have:

* performed eye operations on 282,714 people

* supported training for 10,757 medical and support staff

* examined 1,604,802 people

* delivered $3.38 million of medical equipment

* Built or upgraded 50 eye health facilities

This man’s kindness, knowledge, and undying belief that everyone has a right to health has changed countless lives and communities for the better. Even now, years after his passing, Fred’s team are and giving millions of people the chance to see the world and their loved ones and gain back their independence and self-esteem.

The world could do with more people like Fred and Gabi Hollows. I can only imagine…

If you want to find out more about The Fred Hollows Foundation or get involved, please click here:

http://www.hollows.org.au/our-work

When Tourism Doesn't Mean Vacation

Alli and kids on a project in Bolivia

My first Christmas in Peru was spent in a children’s hospital and orphanage for specials needs kids in Lima. Through this experience, Christmas came to mean something new to me--it’s about reaching out to complete strangers and giving the gift of caring and time. Those precious moments started me on a lifetime of volunteering, including teaching English to kids selling post cards to tourists in Peru, and working as a volunteer for various “official” organisations around the world. 

I’ve often wondered what inspires individuals to reach out to a community and help. For some, it’s a status thing (“Hey, look at me! I just spent a month in Africa handing out rice. I’m such a good Samaritan!), but for most, it’s a chance to help and connect with people from a different culture.

I worked for 15 years in the travel industry and had many, many clients combine a stint of volunteer work with a regular holiday. The term “voluntourism” is relatively new, but the idea behind it isn’t. People have travelled overseas and volunteered on their own accord for years. These days, people can book a trip through a specialist volunteer tourism company and, just like a regular holiday, the agent will organise their flights, visas, travel insurance, and hotels. Instead of sending the client to a resort, they’ll travel to a community project and help out.

I am Pollyanna-like and tend to think most people volunteer out of a desire to help others, rather than for the status of being a do-gooder. I believe there is a need for volunteer tourism, especially for people who are too busy in their everyday lives to go through the lengthy process of finding a project that suits their skills and a community’s needs. I totally get that. But there are a few things that concern me, and I would hope that anyone contemplating such a trip would ask a lot of questions. Such as: 

What percentage of my money will go to the community involved and what will that money be used for?

Could a local be paid to do the type of volunteer work I’m about to undertake? If so, then why would I do it and take their livelihood away?

Can I use my skills to train locals so their project can be self-sustaining going forward?

How is our involvement going to help the community in the long term? Who will monitor the project and ensure it is completed successfully? Who will make sure the locals have the skills and money to run the project on their own in the future?

Helping out at a village in northern India

Will I be living with the locals? Will I have an opportunity to learn about local culture and get to know the people on a personal level?

A volunteer tourism company should be transparent and answer these questions honestly without hesitation. Most people who want to take these kinds of breaks are savvy travellers, so it’s a good idea to go with the gut feeling as to whether a company is being upfront. 

Taking a taxi to a dusty village and labouring for a few hours before returning to a five-star hotel for a refreshing swim is not what I imagine when it comes to volunteering in a foreign country. Living with the host family, helping out with the daily chores, and learning ways to communicate with the locals are all aspects of what I call “volunteer immersion”. Helping a community realise a dream that has been years in the making can be one of the most rewarding experiences on earth.

This is why it’s up to us, the volunteers, to monitor these companies who sell volunteer tourism packages. We need to make sure the money is going directly to the community and projects, and that the locals are learning new skills that will help them over the long term. Our responsibility as a volunteer starts the moment we decide to participate in a project, and it should continue until well after we return to our heated apartments with fresh, running water. 

Realistically, not many of us have the time or money to spend long stints volunteering abroad. No doubt, many of you reading this have already volunteered overseas, or would like to, at some stage. What we need to do as individuals, and as a collective of like-minded people, is to ensure that when we do volunteer, our efforts are worthwhile. And that means the people we help, gain long term benefit.

Whether it’s two weeks, two months, or two years, volunteering can change the lives of many, including, you, the volunteer.

How about you? Have you volunteered on any foreign projects, or are there any you would like to be involved in?

Off the Beaten Track: Inside South Sudan

Dr. Lanice Jones is a Canadian family physician, world traveler, and adventurer in every sense of the word. She recently spent two months as a medical volunteer in South Sudan, and on the eve of that country’s historic vote, she shares her experience with us.
 

While I have had the privilege of working and studying medicine on several continents, my last two months volunteering in South Sudan have been a life-changing experience. South Sudan is the poorest country with the highest maternal and pediatric mortality that I’ve worked in. It is isolated by lack of roads and infrastructure, lack of supplies, and lack of skilled staff. Yet the culture is vibrant, passionate, and filled with hope that the vote on January 9th will result in independence and a better future.

South and North Sudan suffered a 17-year civil war that ended five years ago with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. The civil war was complex, as North and South Sudan have different ethnic groups, different religions, different languages, and in the middle of the conflict, oil fields that span the border. With the signing of the CPA, South Sudan was supposed to have more autonomy, better resource allocation and a greater political voice, but most South Sudanese would state that their hopes with the CPA have not been realized.

At the heart of the separation conflict lie the border communities that contain the oil reserves. The oil from South Sudan is sent by pipeline to refineries on the coast of North Sudan, and from there, the bulk of the oil is shipped to China. China has been trading oil from South Sudan for weapons for North Sudan for over a decade. The president of North Sudan, Omar Hassan Al-Bashir, has been indicted for war crimes against Darfur. He has a long history of military aggression. Meanwhile, South Sudan has military support and training from America, although this is a more covert operation. 

Lanice assisting Dr. Benjamin with a
gunshot wound to the foot

The doctors I was working with are some of the Lost Boys and Girls who fled South Sudan during the war, seeking refugee status. Cuba had accepted many of these child refugees, educating them in preparation for returning to help rebuild South Sudan. Unfortunately, when their education was completed, Sudan was still at war and these young adults came to Canada and America. In Canada, they worked in menial jobs as our government doesn’t recognize their medical education as being valid.

When North and South Sudan signed the CPA in 2006, a group of Cuban-educated physicians approached the University of Calgary, asking for help to return back to South Sudan. My university created an education program in Canada and Nairobi to upgrade their medical knowledge and skills, and I’d been one of their teachers. Now it was my turn to be the student.

I spent two months in South Sudan working alongside my colleagues in three different hospitals, and I was part of a one-week educational camp with specialists from Sudan and Canada focusing on obstetrics, pediatrics, and anaesthesia.

Patients and family members with

their makeshift tent at the

Marial Lou hospital compound

On a daily basis, I was humbled by the skills of my colleagues, as they ran hospitals with minimal laboratory support, no x-ray facilities, limited supplies, and minimal staff. Yet they saved lives each and every day. One day in particular, a 13-day old baby arrived with a fever of 102 degrees, comatose with infection from a difficult birth in a mud hut. In an American hospital, that infant would have been in intensive Care, with round-the-clock, expert nursing staff, an infectious disease and neonataology specialist, and continuous oxygen and monitoring. We had no nursing staff, and I and my colleague Dr. Ajak took turns every six hours to check on the infant and administer intravenous antibiotics. This may not sound so difficult, but imagine getting up in the dark, with no electricity, pulling on gum-boots to avoid snakes and scorpions, creeping by flashlight along a flooded pathway to the hospital, beating off swarms of malaria-infested mosquitoes to attend to the infant curled up under a mosquito net with his mother, and no one speaking English! Within three days, the little one was alert and nursing well and was discharged a week later with no obvious ill effects.

Another afternoon, I was called to see a woman in labour, and was told that a doctor who was not part of our education program had indicated that she had a huge abdomen from extra fluid in the uterus. As it was her sixth delivery, which is another risk for bleeding, I was teaching the community health worker how to prevent bleeding after delivery. We turned our backs to get the medication ready, and out shot a tiny baby, clearly not at term. I grabbed the infant and rushed to a rickety table with a dirty ventilation bag, mask, and re-usable suction bottle. The infant was blue, not breathing, and had a very low pulse. I ran through a resuscitation protocol while the “nurses” watched in amazement. Most didn’t know anything about resuscitating sick newborns. I peeked back at the woman on the broken old delivery table, and her abdomen was still huge – clearly not just from extra fluid!

I rushed back, put on a clean glove, and examined her, confirming that she had a second twin waiting its turn to be born. I requested that they call in the other doctor, as I was still attending the first sick infant. He returned, re-examined the woman, announced that she had a twin, that the mother was not contracting, and walked out of the room! There I was, having never delivered twins before, with one unskilled community health worker, one sick twin, a second one on the way, and the other doctor simply walked out. In our hospital, any twin delivery would be attended by a team of doctors and nurses for each twin and the mother.

Once I had the first twin stabilized, wrapped in a skimpy rag and passed off to a family member to hold, I prepared to deliver the second twin. This little one came out pink and screaming, a blessing, but by the time I’d delivered the placenta and ensured that the woman was stable and not hemorrhaging, the second twin was grunting and in distress. I had to bludgeon my way into the operating theater to “borrow” an oxygen concentrator, and I insisted that they keep running the generator to keep the concentrator on until the little twin’s breathing returned to normal. Having just got the second twin sorted out, with both getting a mixture of sugar water for feeding as there was no formula in the hospital, I was called back to see the mother, who was now comatose, feverish, and seizing from presumable malaria, which had likely triggered the labor!

A month later when I returned to this community, I managed to track down this mother and her twins, and visited them in their tukel, or thatched mud hut. Both babies were alive, and while still scrawny, they were nursing, taking extra formula, and gaining weight.

While the world watches, South Sudan will vote this Sunday, January 9. My sense is that the majority will vote for separation. With oil revenues at stake, while President Al-Bashir states he will abide by the vote, I fear that conflict will erupt. My colleagues will continue to provide the best care possible under horrendous conditions, but I fear for them and their communities. And I hope to return to help.