WELCOME!

Welcome to the blog for http://www.medifree.org/, an organization whose mission it is to secure medical supplies for small, on-the-ground providers of care.

Every human being, no matter who they are or where they live, has the right to sutures. And of course, we are using sutures to symbolize all the medical needs that human beings have.

Here are two doctors, whose words have inspired us to take up the challenge of 'doing more.' --

" 'More' is to feel responsible when our sisters in poor countries die because their human rights did not include sutures."
Dr. Tarek Maguid, Lilongwe, Malawi

"When we can discuss solemnly the 'right to sutures' even as we discuss gender inequality and torture, we will have succeeded in shifting the agenda in a way that makes sense to the world's poor and marginalized. This should be the goal of the health and human rights movement in the 21st century. "
Dr. Paul Farmer, Partners in Health
(http://www.pih.org/)

Please consider contributing to the organizations we assist, or directly to Medifree to help us give where we feel the need is greatest and the resources least available.

If you have no money to give: "Do all you can with what you have, in the time you have, in the place you are."
(Nkosi Johnson, 12 year old Zulu boy, who lived with AIDS).

You may contact us by commenting on a post or by sending us an email at sutures1@live.com. Our snail mail address is P.O. Box 51334, Kalamazoo, Michigan 49005 USA, and our telephone number is 269 384-5755. We look forward to hearing from you!


Let us "preach the truth as if we had a million voices, for it is silence that kills the world."
-- St. Catherine of Sienna









Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Grozny School for the Blind (Chechnya)


We have found two manual braillers and other Braille material to send Dr. Baiev for use at the Grozny School for the Blind. We also hope to have other donations for the container he plans to send in the spring; we are looking for canes and Braille watches.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Refugee Boy Gets Ready to be Shot!

With needles, of course. This is my foster son from Burma, getting ready for his first ever immunizations.
He is here to introduce you to Dr. Cynthia Maung, who runs a clinic on the Thai-Myanmar border to serve Burmese refugees. Check it out at http://www.maetaoclinic.org/.

Congratulations, Dr. Mukwege!

Dr. Denis Mukwege, who runs a clinic for victims of sexual violence, in Bukavu, Democratic Republic of Congo, was recently named "African of the Year." He has also won the Olof Palme prize, awarded for outstanding achievement in promoting peace.

Check out http://www.panzihospitalbukavu.org/, and read about his work.

Also! (insert drumroll) Our first box of 200 sutures is on its way to Haiti, courtesy of Global Links. Thank you to everyone who is making this possible.