Today is the big day!!!!! We have been planning for today for about a whole month now!!! It is finally coming to fore-wishing! So much planning and last minute changes has been made for today! I was preparing all the last minute details till really early this morning and got about an hour of rest before getting up again! Super excited to see how everything works out! Right when I got up I looked out the window and OH SNAP.....it is pouring down rain! It poured last night for a long while and now it has started to rain again......oh this is not a pleasant start to today's event. Oh well, we do not give up, we will keep on going! Life is full of curveballs, especially during disaster relief! We have learned to catch these curveballs even in our sleep, so let's go! Challenge accepted!
The tents were already set up late last night! Thanks so much to Karma for making sure that was done correctly! This made it easier for us to have a shelter to hide from the rainfalls. We started by putting the Tzu Chi Free Clinic banner on! It is official! Now onto the problem with the ground....
Most of the ground at the Chuchepati IDP Camp is purely mud, so when it rains it becomes really wet and slippery at a fast rate. Flooding is a normal occurrence at the camp site, but we needed to be able to secure the area for the free clinic. We cannot have people walking ankle deep in mud and falling all over the place. So we got all the local volunteers together, along with the Tzu Chi volunteers, to start making the grounds flatter and less flooded.
I am so grateful for these local volunteers. They are so dedicated and with such hardworking attitudes in everything they do with us. The best way for the grounds to be flatter and less dangerous to walk on would be to lay down bricks to make it even. So that was what we did.
We made a human chain and started to pass brick by brick to the most needed areas! Look how efficient everyone is! What great teamwork!!!
After about 40 minutes, the ground situation was getting so much better!!! Look, so much drier and flatter already! What great efforts!
This is so true: when a group of people all come together and work on the same goal, the results are immediate!!! So much faster when we all work together for the same cause, with the same heart, such motivation can really change the world! So grateful to have each and everyone of you!
Yay!!! This is the acceptable conditions! The Free Clinic can finally be set up now! Great job everyone!
This is one of our housewife seeds! She is always so helpful in every event! Helping out with some last minute rope pulling! Things are rolling along!
See what a huge difference the bricks make for the ground? Finally some stable ground to stand on for the people coming to see the doctors!
Making my final rounds to see if all stations are ready for us to start our event today!
Making some last minute adjustments in certain areas!
The entrance area was really muddy! Look how devoted one of the volunteer is! He literally was on his hands, making sure the grounds were as even as possible for the residents!
Thanks to all the children for helping pick up the trash on the ground! Good education starts from when we are young! If we don't teach them when they are young, habitual tendencies are harder to correct as we get older. So before giving them dust pans to use, the proper waste management education needs to take place. Everything needs to be looked at starting from the root of the issue. So I was very happy to see all the young children learning to pick up trash from the ground and puts it into the plastic bags! Let's hope this waste management education keeps on going strong and it can translate over to the adult population, as well! Go Go Go children! You can do it!
Thanks to Karma for leading them in picking up all the trash on the ground! What a great role model! I am such a proud Mama right now!!! :)
Prayer time! Program can finally start now!
Praying for all hearts to be purified, society to be harmonious, and no more disasters in the world.
Sharing about the Bamboo Bank spirit! Everyone was very touched by the Great Love spirit and lots of love was shared and spread all around today! Thank you Chuchepati!
~ FREE CLINIC ~
Referral time! Today we had the possibility of giving eye and OBGYN referrals!
Super grateful to all the doctors who showed up today! We had a total of 9 doctors and 7 nurses show up for today's free clinic. Included are three hospital directors! Their giving spirit is so grand, we are so blessed to have them on the TIMA Nepal team. Total patient seen today = 597. That is such a great turn out considering how hard it rained and the condition of the grounds! Super grateful! We helped a lot of people today! YAY!
A typical Ambulance in Nepal. Very compact, but saves lives just the same!
Hygiene Education! Look at how great the children are doing! The first station is teaching them the difference between drinking water vs. hand-washing water. This is super important, because drinking water is treated and it would be a huge waste to use it for non-drinking purposes. So I am so glad they are going to have to physically choose which water drum to use for hand-washing in each step of the hygiene education. It will really ingrain in their heads the differences between the two. We are hoping that the next time they use water, they will look at the signage and think before they open the tap or put water directly into their mouths. Health awareness all the way! On top of this important information, they are also learning the 6 steps of proper hand washing! Doing such a great job! Keep up the good work!
What a great day! Thanks to all the local volunteers for helping out! Without them, it would never have been possible to do anything today! The power of volunteerism rings loud and clear today at Chuchepati! Here are two health assistants! Thanks girls for taking charge of the vitals station!
My boy Karma! You are my rock at Chuchepati! So grateful for your dedication! I can always count on you for anything! Thank you so much!
Thank you to the doctors from WHO and IOM for visiting our free clinic and hygiene education event today! I had the pleasure of showing them around the Chuchepati camp and I am looking forward in working with them on more data collection for IDP camps. They are mostly focusing on different types of disabilities in the IDP Camp population. A huge shout out to Isabelle from MSF-France for helping us do real-time on-site data collection today! She was amazingly fast with all the data! Super grateful for all of these partners! It really is amazing how things unfold, from one health cluster meeting presentation to exchanging contact information to explaining what Tzu Chi is all about, now we have a solid partnering team for the medical mission.
Love these medical volunteers!!!! You guys are awesome!
The local volunteers came from all over today: Chuchepati Camp, Maheswori Camp, IDP Camp, Libali Camp, Gomang Carpet and Thimi areas. Thank you guys from the bottom of my heart! The difference you guys make for humanity is HUGE!!!! Keep up the good work! Let us all work together for the greater good of all! Love you guys!
One must overcome difficulty instead of being overcome by difficulty
~Master Cheng Yen~
CHALLENGE SUCCEEDED!
