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Introducing Leang Khy! Our new trainee physiotherapist, now working part-time with us and soaking up the skills and experience of Sokny. This is a new program we are implementing in an effort to further bridge the gap between NGO and Government health service provision and education. Leang Khy is a Cambodian trained physiotherapist (Diploma of Physiotherapy from the Technical School for Medical Care) employed by Chey Chumneas Referral Hospital, but like so many physiotherapists in this country, she was not actually working as one. Instead, she works in the pharmaceutical department distributing medicine. There has previously been no government physiotherapy service functioning in this hospital.

With the Hospital Director’s support and permission, we are now supplementing Leang Khy’s (small) monthly government salary, and providing her with training to work as a physiotherapist within the hospital. She is motivated, enthusiastic, and showing great promise. Her limited, but very much improving, English is adding to the speedy progression of the Khmer language skills of foreign staff!

Leang Khy has been a wonderful, vibrant addition to the work place since commencing with us.

She and Sokny are pictured working with a stroke patient, utilizing our new blood pressure monitor, purchased with funds from CIDA.

Sokny is doing an amazing job taking Leang Khy under his wing, patiently teaching, listening, demonstrating and working collaboratively with her to improve rehabilitation services for patients at Chey Chumneas Referral Hospital.

At this stage, Leang Khy is part time and not working in the community with us, she is based in solely in the hospital. As the internship program evolves and our capacity develops, this may change.

Donate to help support Leang’s salary, enabling her to help hundreds of patients.

On April 21, over 100 New Yorkers gathered on the Lower East Side for a fun filled day of street hockey, followed by raffles and drink specials at the Fishmarket in South Street Seaport. We raised over $5,500 for Rose Rehab, for children’s physical therapy in Cambodia.

Thanks to all who came out to support this amazing project!

 

 

(http://www NULL.rosecanada NULL.info/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/DRUMMERS_3 NULL.jpg)Rose Charities and Brighter Smiles Africa would like to congratulate Ronald Mukisa (Ronny) for being named best drummer at a local cultural music festival in Uganda! Traditional drumming skills are highly prized in Africa. Schools have teams of drummers who play for dancers who compete against each other at cultural music festivals (see photo). Many hours are spent in practice to train the drummers, perfect the rhythms, and prepare the dancers for these events. In a competition this month Ronald Mukisa was named best drummer, and his team took top honours.

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Ronny is a student sponsored by Rose at Mengo Senior School in Kampala Uganda, and he has trained the school’s drummers since he joined Mengo last year. Ronny is a gifted musician who also plays guitar, and is the official trumpeter leading support at school soccer matches. His skills have made him popular with teachers and students; and he also has music videos on YouTube of songs he has written and recorded as a vocalist – watch Ronny and his brother Marvin in Njagala gwe in the video below.

 

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Brighter Smiles Africa is a project of Rose Charities International. Other boys like Ronny can be sponsored on the Brighter Smiles Africa website (http://www NULL.brightersmilesafrica NULL.ca/). Please donate to any of Brighter Smiles Africa’s Projects through Rose US.  All donations over $20 will receive a tax receipt. Thank-you for your support!

 

By contributor Meredith Danberg-Ficarelli

While visiting Rose Charities Rehabilitation Center, I was lucky enough to tag along on a field visit with Joanna, Supak, and Sokny to a farming village where some disabled patients live. We traveled 1.5 hours by tuktuk, first stopping at the home of an encephalitis patient who was not treated early on for her condition. Now at age 31, she has been in an upright seated position only a handful of times, when helped by the RCRC team. She has spent the rest of her life in a reclined position, largely because her muscles are too weak for her to hold herself upright.

Cambodian culture ostracizes disabled people, forcing them out of everyday society and often leaving them isolated and depressed. Joanna believes that if the patient had received treatment from an early age, she could most likely be mobile with the assistance of a walking device. Today however, her muscles are in a state of atrophy beyond recuperation.

Joanna hopes to continue working with her to strengthen her arm muscles, so she can assist her father and other family members in raising her from a reclined position to a seated posture on a daily basis. Sitting up will allow her to interact with other villagers, and assist in daily chores in the village.

Rose Rehab is trying to dedicate a staff member to work with her once a week, we could accomplish this for $30 a month, please donate to help this patient lead a fulfilling life.

By contributor Diane Frost –

Rose Charities’ Access For All is a groundbreaking program that changes the lives of physically disabled young women in Cambodia. Through educational opportunities and disability awareness, young women like Chanry, a Kamchay Mea District of Prey Veng native, will reach her potential and become a role model in the community.

Access For All is changing lives through communal living as well as teaching life and career skills. Plucking uneducated young women whose physical disabilities force them to endure discrimination and granting scholarship awards.

Access For All began Chanry’s life anew.

Chanry began her climb unable to walk. Her devoted parents carried her to school.

Chanry, 23-years-old, remembers “I was very hurt when people in my village blamed me for making life difficult for my parents and called me a useless person.” She was determined to prove them wrong.

Chanry came to the attention of Rose Charities and was granted a scholarship.

Chanry is now living in the Access For All share house in Prey Veng town, funded by $1,200 donated to pay for the land on which the house was built and $5,200 from local community members and international friends to build the house, while studying accounting at the nearby Chea Sim Kamchay Mea University – which she can travel to easily in her wheelchair. She also has the most senior position in the household – she’s the Access For All Project Team Leader.

Chanry’s responsibilities include building greater community understanding of disabilites and the rights of the disabled. Towards this goal, the young women developed a questionnaire to take to people in various villages in Prey Veng. Despite the challenges of rural roads, Chanry travelled to Trabeak village in the district of Ba Phnom and spoke with multiple families.

These were not short visits! Each household wanted to know where Chanry came from, how she became disabled and what difficulties she faced. They knew little about people with disabilities, and said when they thought of people like her, they thought of seeing people on the road, asking for money. Chanry felt strong and confident when telling them about her life and about the discrimination she has suffered because of her disability.

Telling her story and talking about her goals has helped to change this small community’s views on disability, and Chanry is happy and proud of this achievement. This is just the beginning of a future in which Chanry hopes to be a project manager, working to improve access for people with disabilities in Cambodia, or working for an NGO helping to reduce discrimination.

It is just the beginning of a future in which Chanry hopes to be a project manager, working to improve accessibility for people with disabilities in Cambodia, or working for an NGO helping to reduce discrimination.

Community donations, such as $5,724 for High School Education sponsorship for 9 of the young women to attend Ang Doung High School and $8,789 for University Education sponsorship for 11 of the young women – Chea Sim University of Kamchey Mear makes for life changing opportunities for young women living in poverty.

Other equipment for Access for All was provided by Australian Telstra/NAB ‘Helping Hands’ program, which donated $2,000 for laptop computers.

These donations have helped get this amazing projects off the ground. The generous DIAF contribution is $20,000 for 12 months which has been amazing for establishing this project. However that is about to expire. We are in need of funds to support the running costs of this amazing project. Please donate to help us keep this project going.

The bi-annual Rose Charities International conference in Penang Malaysia was an amazing gathering of delegates from 13 different countries including Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Cambodia, Guatemala, Vietnam, and Uganda. The meeting is a great place for us to talk about the status of our organization and projects, as well as share new ideas. Getting all of the projects together in one place allows them to share resources and support one another.

This face to face time is important for the project countries as well as the fundraising countries. It also gave Rose Charities Singapore the opportunity to distribute donated laptops to Vietnam, Cambodia, Uganda and Guatemala!

Rose USA delegates Rachel Greene and Meredith Danberg-Ficarelli worked with projects on utilizing social media to improve communications with donors and using google and other technology to improve communication within Rose Charities. We believe that both of these technologies will help improve communication without spending – keeping in line with Rose Charities mission of low overhead costs.

written by volunteer Meredith Danberg-Ficarelli

Rose Charities Rehabilitation Center stands among other Rose projects as an inspiration and a testament to the drive of individuals to work for the betterment of underprivileged populations. This physiotherapy center just outside Phnom Penh in provides muscular rehabilitation therapy and consultation to young Cambodians. Amputations and limb deformities are common among this population that lived through the brutal Khmer Rouge, and those that survived genocide bear the scars of civil war and trauma.

RCRC has restored mobility to hundreds of people in the city and surrounding area, and was built as a collaboration between Rose Charities and AusAid. Joanna came to Cambodia with the objective of starting a physio clinic in 2009, and RCRC now staffs 7 Physiotherapists, doctors, and administrators. Joanna was awarded the 2011 Rose Charities award for outstanding achievement for the success RCRC has had in assisting Cambodians in need. Cambodian culture ostracizes disabled people, forcing them out of everyday society and often leaving them isolated and depressed. Joanna fights to treat these patients, and break down the stereotypes around them.

Rachel Greene, the Rose Charities US executive director and fundraising coordinator, rasied $800 in 2010 to purchase a new rubber floor for the rehabilitation center, to cover the cement floor previously used to treat patients. This soft floor has since turned into a bit of a play area for local children, and the interaction between disabled children receiving treatment at RCRC and local children has created an integrative effect that otherwise does not occur in Cambodia. Young children play together regardless of physical impairment, and in turn realize the equality amongst themselves.

Since its inception, RCRC has appropriated unused office space from the government-owned hospital where the project is located, and has built a roof over an empty space between buildings to house the rehabilitation area.

Vancouver is known for its cherry blossoms and late-April is when they get going ! Come and see them and come to our wonderful concert. Rutsuku Yamagishi is one of the worlds great pianists. One of Rutsukos beliefs is that performances should be live only – thus she rarely (if ever) will perform for recordings in studios..

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Sri Lanka:   Young Women’s Clubs –  8 villages,   Girls sports programs ,  Women’s University Scholarship Program,  Women’s Livelihood Groups (Women’s Support and Women’s Vocational Training.     www.rosesrilanka.info (http://www NULL.rosesrilanka NULL.info/)

Pakistan:   Frontier Primary Health Care support of  Traditional Birth Attendant training program   www.hmef.info (http://www NULL.hmef NULL.info/)

Cambodia: ‘Access for All’  program for disabled womens education, support and vocational training   http://rosecambodia.org (http://www NULL.rosecambodia NULL.org/)

Afghanistan:  Tabish-Rose Charities Training Women’s Health and Computer training program’s  www.hmef.info (http://www NULL.hmef NULL.info/)

Guatemala:  Safe Motherhood women’s birth attendant and women’s health programs   www.safemotherhoodproject.org (http://www NULL.safemotherhoodproject NULL.org/)

Zambia:  Womens income generation programs   http://malambograssroots.ca (http://malambograssroots NULL.ca/)

Haiti:  Women’s neonatal nursing training  www.rosehaiti.info (http://www NULL.rosehaiti NULL.info/)

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World Birth aid pack saves countless lives

We also wish to laud the women’s programs Rose  has been privileged to have supported, partnered  or planned with, in the past (and perhaps the future too!)  including  the Lumbini Program for training of Women Village Eye Screeners  www.lei.org.np (http://www NULL.lei NULL.org NULL.np/)   and the remarkable  ‘WBDI’ Organization in Samoa,  www.womeninbusiness.ws (http://www NULL.womeninbusiness NULL.ws/)  the One in Three Women Organization (Seattle)  www.oneinthreewomen.com (http://www NULL.oneinthreewomen NULL.com/) and  World Birth Aid (Seattle)  www.worldbirthaid.org (http://www NULL.worldbirthaid NULL.org/)

 

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Haiti Cholera Relief 2010. Dr Amy Osborne

The organizers of Rose Charities also pay tribute and gratitude to the professional women volunteers (nurses, physicians, counselors, logisticians etc) who have contributed over 50% of involvement, organization and sustainability of emergency relief and ‘post-relief’ operations Rose Charities and close partners AMDA (http://amdacanada NULL.org) have played over the years.  Their magnificent work has helped tens of thousands of victims in many parts of the globe.

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Hurricane Katrina 2005 R.N.Kirsten Reems

On Jan 5 2012, the first graduation ceremony, since the earthquake, took place at the State University School of Nursing in Port-aux-Prince Haiti. As each graduating student stood up to receive her award,  she honored five of her class mates who had lost their lives when the school collapsed. Over 200 students were killed that day and the school completely destroyed. Just a few weeks later, in an act of extraordinary courage and perseverance, the surviving students and staff reopened the school in tents and carried on as best they could. In the weeks and months following the earthquake, Rose Charities was able to assist by organizing counseling for the surviving nurses, sending new textbooks, teaching maniquinns and a container of equipment for the teaching lab. We have continued to provide neo-natal training courses to nurse educators.

The graduation ceremony was a moving tribute that all the students, staff and dignitaries from the Ministry of Health felt honoured to make. The loss of so many young women and health professionals in a country that needs them desperately, was felt by all. Rose Charities was honored to be specifically thanked by Madame Nazaire in her gratitude to all who helped them over the last years. We here at Rose Charities would like to honor the dedication of the staff and students and wish them well in their future.

Thanks to all our supporters for generously donating during this horrific disaster. Rose Charities continues to support the Nursing School during Haiti’s slow rebuilding period.We run neo-natal nursing clinics, providing text books and teaching the nurses and nurse educators best practices for neonatal care. Please donate to help us keep this program going.