Two of our amazing volunteers, Winnie and Satish, took a suitcase to their hometown of Bhubaneswar, India, amazing job! Thank you for everything that you do! [NJT Toronto]
“Winnie and I had a great trip. Bhubaneswar is our home town, so we know a few doctors through relatives and friends. We spoke to 4 health centers to find out the best place to give the suitcase to, most of them had sufficient supplies were not really in need of additional supplies.
Finally we were able to give the suitcase to a Community Health Center (CHC) about 30 kms from Bhubaneswar. This CHC caters to small communities and 2 residential schools in their catchment area. One residential school is for the tribal students from nearby districts with about 200 students and the other one is a girls orphanage cum school with about 150 students. We got a chance to visit the tribal residential school along with the CHC health worker. It was a very humbling experience meeting young children from under-served communities, especially since they were so close to our hometown. The school principal convened an impromptu session where we were able to talk to the children on the importance of cleanliness and good hygiene. We were joined by the head of a local NGO that supports the school and the nearby community.
The CHC was quite busy when we visited. As it can be seen in the pictures, it needs better infrastructure. We got to interact with the doctor in charge of the CHC, pharmacist and the health officer. They were very happy to receive the supplies especially the wound care supplies that can be directly used in supporting the schools. They have promised to help us identify more such health centers through their network where we can provide the suppliers in future.
We have been volunteering at NJT pack nights for almost a year. We wanted to experience “take a suitcase, change a life” motto ourselves. It was a great experience and we would love to take more suitcases in the future. As this was our first time, we carried only one suitcase. In our future trips to India, we would be happy to carry a couple of more suitcases!
Best,
Winnie & Satish”
