OUR INTERNATIONAL CONTACTS CONTINUE TO SUPPORT US

Chad Hoffman from Christian Mission Aid

Today we had an unexpected, very welcome visitor, Chad Hoffman, regional director from Christian Mission Aid. Bram has been in contact with him for some months now, having recognised that we share the same commitment to improve the lives of our poorest and most vulnerable communities. http://www.cmaid.org/

Christian Mission Aid achieves its mission by training community leaders and by supporting them to work within their own local communities. So Chad was particularly interested to hear about our Community Outreach Team which has huge potential to develop its services if given the necessary training and resources. Chad was keen to find out about the work we already do, raising awareness about our hospital based services and organising medical camps on a variety of health issues.

Bram showed Chad round Arrow Web Hospital while they discussed how we could work together in the future. Chad has invited us to submit a workplan outlining how we could develop our outreach programs, particularly counselling and youth programs, with his organisation's support.

This is of course a tremendous opportunity for us, as our work in the community, unlike some our hospital based services, receives no support from the government.

Chad pauses to speak to a mother with her child who is receiving treatment

Chad was very interested to hear about our laboratory

Only a few days to go for Sebastian

We are really grateful to volunteer medical student Sebastian Kadex who has been working with us for six weeks now. He has been a great help to our medical staff and we do hope he has enjoyed his stay with us. He returns home to Germany on Friday and we will certainly miss him.

Sebastian working with Dr Ishmael at one of our busy baby clinics

Next month we look forward to welcoming Rosie Jeffries, from France (originally from the UK) and Kelly Potter from the US.

Improving the volunteer's experience

We have recently introduced a volunteer feedback questionnaire so that we can continually try to improve the volunteers' experience with us. James and his medical student friends who worked with us in July, suggested to us that it would be helpful if we were able to provide volunteers with information about the likely medical conditions, and the treatments available, before they arrived to work with us. So one of our great friends Dr John Gilbert from the UK is preparing a handbook for future medical student and nursing volunteers. We are very grateful to John, who you may remember volunteered with us about two years ago for six weeks, while still a medical student.