Survive
“Elastoplast” solutions (these are very important and include food, water and medical attention) fix short term problems – but a lot of charities and NGOs perform these functions for generation after generation. We call this phase SURVIVE.
We want to help this phase by sending 3rd and 4th year medical students from the UK and EU countries to Malawi as part of their training. A 3rd year med student is better than no-one. We already have an agreement in principle with UCL to send their 3rd or 4th year students there. We want to open this up to other EU universities. All medical students have to do a 3-4 month course “practical” somewhere. Agreements with local hospitals need to be reached. Hosting needs to be organised. Supervision of the students needs to be agreed and carried out by already overworked local doctors and admin teams. This is self-funded by the med students – NOT by Orphan Aid Malawi. They would pay for 2 kids for a year to go to secondary school as a “fee” to Orphan Aid Malawi which would be passed on 100%
Clinicians who have some time off (or just need to get away from it all for a while!) and feel like a change and who want to feel appreciated take note!!
Spend a month (or 3) in the Heart of Africa – working in a rural clinic or town hospital. Conditions may be far from perfect, resources limited to say the least, the hours long, the temperature warm warm warm. Probably just what you need – and definitely just what these kids need! And after a long, hard, dry day – a cold beer is like pure gold !
Medical Students: Some or all your stay may qualify as an internship and count towards your degree – you will need to check that yourself with the head of the clinic or hospital and your university. Even if not, the experience you will gain will be huge as will be the impact on your CV.
We help put you in touch with people on the ground in Malawi re: work and accommodation. We do NOT provide airfares or any other sort of financial assistance. The reason is simple – for the price of your airfare OrphanAidMalawi can put an orphan through 5 years of boarding senior school – enough to feed and educate him or her to GCSE Level.
And the professional and life experience you will gain there in a few weeks is worth a year in a university!
Initially we will be publishing a list of clinics and hospitals here and the level of location-specific information will be updated regularly. We are looking for a Volunteer Coordinator here and in Europe so that hard pressed staff in Malawi only receive qualified and serious enquiries.
