Issue no 3, 1999 -- English edition -- home
Page: -- Contents -- (1), 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
Seven days for the Doctor Bank -- The "Doctor Bank Week" in November this year (and all coming years, we hope) is a new initiative to raise money and awareness about how the Doctor Bank works.
Everywhere the Doctor Bank has doctors, people ask us to send more. If all goes according to plan, we will send out at least 150 doctors in the year 2000. However, this requires that we have funding for their travel and living costs.
We shall also endeavour to:
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Five wells are ready in the project Water for Life. This is how they look, with a solid hand pump that is to last many years. Fences protect all the wells so that animals cannot get in. The money for these wells has come from the Rotary clubs Finnveden, Sävsjö, Storuman, Heleneholm and Vetlanda. |
Here's what you can do:
For clubs:
Let the Doctor Bank Week in November become an exciting, fun and meaningful week, both in the club and in the home, and consider this:
THERE IS NOTHING IN LIFE THAT MEANS AS MUCH AS HELPING SOMEONE ELSE. Going through the Doctor Bank means helping thousands of others.
Many
ask: Is it true? YES, IT IS TRUE that polluted water -- the only water that
millions have to drink -- can be purified from bacteria by putting it in
plastic bottles in the tropical sun, where the water gets heated to 50 C.
In addition, according to the British researcher Keith Jones, the ultraviolet
rays efficiently disinfects from harmful organisms (see New Scientist, 14
August 1999). This is but a confirmation of what was known in India 2000
years ago. The difference is that now we have transparent plastic bottles
that let in these solar rays, then they did not.
It is also true that polluted water causes countless deaths, especially among children.
The bottles can be used in two ways, both efficient: we can put money in them, the children in Africa can get pure water from them.
"In the shadow of Kosova, Africa suffers. The aid to Kosova already now uses a significant portion of all catastrophe reserves. Close to half of Africa's 54 countries are directly or indirectly affected by war. In Africa live a quarter of all the world's refugees, and almost half of those who have been displaced from their homes."
Professor Magnus Grabe, from Malmö, Sweden, the departing head of WHO's education project in catastrophe health care, writes this in one of the main Swedish daily newspapers. He continues:
"Although progress has been made, there have never been as many people as today who live under the existence minimum, i.e. under a dollar per day. Never before has the need for aid been as great, both catastrophe aid and long term development aid."
One of the big problems for most hospitals in Africa is that more and more people cannot afford even the simplest medicines. Infinitely greater resources would be needed for the Doctor Bank Poverty Fund. The Doctor Bank doctors never require payment for their work, but the hospitals have large costs for e.g. salaries.