We're also both artists with decades of professional creative experience between us.
We're going to Nepal...
...to bring aid to one of the poorest countries in the world, where four out of five rural women go without healthcare, and where "birth trauma" and "low birth weight" are in the top 10 most common causes of death, with "maternal conditions" coming in at #13.
We have an extraordinary opportunity: in our final quarter before graduation, we'll be traveling to Nepal to support two different organizations-- a women's clinic in the Annapurna region that provides critical, low-cost care to postnatal women with prolapsed uteruses (an ostracizing but easily correctable condition that is especially common in Nepali women), and a village clinic in the Khumbu region that provides healthcare for the residents of the sister Sherpa villages Khumjung and Kunde. Additionally, we'll be working with a residential program in Kathmandu, where young girls with injuries, illnesses, and physical disabilities are taken from dangerous circumstances (most living with their mothers in filthy city prisons). The girls are given shelter, healthcare, food, and education, while being taught vital life skills like handiwork, computers, martial arts and self defense, until their families are able to support them again. In addititon to our service, we will deliver critical medical supplies and educational materials to these organizations.
After we've returned, and to continue raising money for these excellent organizations, we'll be documenting the state of healthcare, motherhood, and the family in rural Nepal through audio recordings, portrait photography, and storytelling. When we come home, we'll host a mixed-media exhibit at a public art venue in our city (we've already been granted the space!), where we'll sell prints and greeting cards (professionally printed at a local printing press) featuring our photographs to continue raising money for the clinics and residential program.
Sounds amazing, right?
Thanks to enthusiastic professors, scholarships, and student loans, we've already raised enough for:
- Tuition for the quarter we're away
- Airfare from the US to Nepal
- Necessary photography equipment
So where will your money go?
Here's your opportunity to offer tangible & lasting assistance to these organizations that reach beyond our volunteerism! Extend the impact of our trip through the purchase and delivery of critical medical supplies, educational tools, and medical equipment, as well as practical technical gear and clothing for medical practitioners serving remote and high-altitude villages, warm clothing and shoes for the village residents (many of whom make due with flip-flops year-round), and high-quality school supplies like pencils, calculators, new paper products, and books published after the 1970's. Additionally, we need to raise a bit more money for our personal expenses, which include travel within the country and our lodging and food costs. We also hope to offset some of the childcare expenses that our families will experience while we're away, and provide a good living wage to the porters who will help us carry the supplies to their destinations.
As far as specific medical supplies, it's the basics we're shooting for initially; we want to bring sterile gauze, clinical-grade scissors and scalpels, bulb syringes, speculums, fetoscopes, stethoscopes, nitrile exam gloves, suturing kits, topical analgesic, topical disinfectants... and more.
$8k is the low-ball figure. That gives us $2.5k for medical supplies and equipment, $1k for birth and contraception education materials, $1k for medicines (antibiotics, antifungals, anti-inflammatories, and prenatal vitamins), $1k for technical clothing and shoes, $2k for our personal expenses, and $500 for school supplies. The extra $700 on our goal total is to cover the costs of this online campaign (paypal and indiegogo both take cuts).
If we don't raise enough money, we'll host a few more fundraisers locally. If we can't meet our financing goals by January 2013, we'll cancel the trip (ie, no delivery of supplies, no photographic/storytelling journey) and all the money we've successfully raised will be split evenly between the two clinics and the girl's home, and wired to each of them directly.
BUT IF WE GO OVER OUR GOAL:
Well, here's where it gets exciting!
Other Ways You Can Help
If you can't contribute financially at this time, but we've inspired you with our grand project scheme, please pass word along to your friends about this campaign. We're also collecting words and/or art pieces of support and encouragement on 5x5" sheets of white paper which we'll be turning into sturdy, weatherproof flags to gift to each of the clinics upon our arrival. If you're interested in participating in this way, let me know and we'll work out our collection of your contribution!
Thank you guys so much. We are so inspired by this project and so hopeful that we'll be able to pull together to make it work!
But seriously, did you see this? Best perk of the century, straight up. ----->
