An Appeal to Help Sadabe Help

April 26, 2010An Appeal to Help Sadabe Help

Dear Altitude Blog readers,

I am writing on behalf of our group “Sadabe” (a Montreal-based NGO), to request your donation of equipment for our first cooperative women’s health workshop to be held in Madagascar with our sister organization “Taratra Reny sy Zaza” in September 2010. Sadabe’s goals are to promote a better and more effective coexistence for Madagascar’s humans and its wildlife, and to improve the education and health of the local Malagasy people in the region.

We have received grant money to host the workshop, but as our site is extremely remote and without running water/electricity, we are in need of a few specific “camping” items to succeed in our mission, and we were hoping you might be interested in supporting our cause and donating new or used equipment.

We plan to donate five “Midwife” kits with medical equipment, but are in need of five LED headlamps to help when delivering babies (as this region has no electricity), five digital watches (to help time contractions) and five small backpacks to hold the equipment. Since this region is within the rainforest and most of our midwives also have no raingear, we are also requesting five raincoats/suits to help them as they hike through the forest to attend births.

Our Canadian medical team (doctor, midwife and doula) are donating their time and materials, but to participate in this workshop they also need 2 tents, three sleeping bags, and three pads to camp in the forest (it is winter in the southern hemisphere, and nights are frequently very cold, ~6 C), as well as six duffel bags to check as luggage to bring the equipment to Madagascar from Canada. These materials will be critical to 1) assist us in the women’s health workshop, 2) help us in bringing training to the five local midwives in our association, and 3) educate local women on important issues promoting women’s health.

If you feel that your organization can donate some or all of these items, please let me know. To thank you for your generosity, we are more than happy to take photos of your donated equipment in use and email them to you when we return in October, as well as thank you enthusiastically on our website and Facebook page. Contact:Karen.samonds@mcgill.ca.

Dr. Karen Samonds