Words from the President

We are on our way home from beautiful Kenya and the people of whom we have grown so fond, after another successful mission. What a great team! Thank you so much to our Kenyan nurses and Clinical Officers who worked so hard to make every clinic run like clockwork. You are awesome and I look forward to working with you again next year! To the Canadian team, Lynn, Jean, Priscilla, Becca and Monica, thank you for your positive can-do attitudes and hard work as well! It has been a true spirit of ‘Harambe’, working together.
I cannot give enough praise to our Kenyan support team who stepped up and took on greater responsibilities and did it well. Jeff with distributing reading glasses as well as manouvering our rickety matatu through crazy roads. Thank you to Evans, Jeff, Jerry and Johnstone for generally helping with patient flow in the clinics and for escorting patients to hospital. Jerry, our special assistant for the sixth mission, who stepped into the role of registration and excelled! Big shoes to fill Dawn but he did it! Johnstone, thank you for your commitment to these communities and for collaborating with me on follow up care for the many patients we met this year who desperately require wheelchairs, surgery and other care- around 23! And a huge thank you to Solomon who is always at the clinics to greet us and lead the collected people in song.
We had so many patients from previous missions come back to say ‘Assante’.Our always smiling Paul and his siblings treated 2 years ago for a severe case of jiggers, Humphery who has a totally healed foot that he was in danger of losing because of infection in October. Mary who had a large neck growth removed and now wears a beautiful smile. And baby John and his mother Grace who are thriving after a little support and help in October. There were many others as well. We are humbled as they have so little brought us beautiful gifts of sugar cane and the best avacados I have ever tasted.
On behalf of the entire team, I would like to the communities we serve for their warm welcomes, their amazing voices raised in song, their prayers and allowing us the privilege of spending some time with them.
Here are the number of patients we treated this mission:
:Clinics- 7226 patients
:School children deworming- 1774
:Wound care- 169 individuals
:Reading glasses- 444 distributed
:Jiggers treatments- 328
:Sexual health teaching- 262
:Transported to hospital for further treatment- 22
The work is not done. There are many patients who require further treatment. Please continue to support our fundraisers as it is only through you, our generous supporters and donors in Canada that we are able to continue this valuable work. Our communities here ask that we thank all of you as they are so grateful for your help.
And a special thank you to Lynn. Always passionate about this work, gives so much of herself every day and asks nothing in return. And what would we do without that sense of humour? Assante.

This Post Has One Comment

  1. Eric Wright

    10, 000 lives changed for the better! Few have made such an enormous difference without asking for anything in return. CNFA you are our heroes!

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