December 2019 Newsletter
Your December update:
Support the VDrs Winter Appeal
It's Giving Tuesday and we are using this momentus global giving day to launch our Winter Fundraising and Awareness Campaign.
Throughout December and January we want to encourage our supporters to donate or set up fundraising pages to raise sponsorship. We want to encourage you all to join together to raise vital funds we need to the Virtual Doctors telemedicine to a new level. Your support will be helping to strengthen healthcare delivery in Zambia and Malawi.
Its not all about money. Awareness helps too! Throughout the next two months you'll be hearing lots via our social platforms. You'll be able to follow us closely throughout the festive period to learn more about the great strides we've made thanks to our supporters. We will share some of the exciting, topical and seasonal ways you can get involved. Some examples of these in time for Christmas and the January Sales are Dontsendmeacard (Ecard), GiveasYouLive & Amazon Smile (online shopping)
Not only that but we've also been lucky enough to secure a BBC Radio 4 Appeal slot on 19th January 2020 and we'll be telling you more about that in our January news.
Congratulations to our 2019 Clinical Officer Christmas card competition winner: Josias Phiri at Palabena RHC, Chongwe District.
Look out for follow-up submissions on our social media during our Winter Campaign.
Update from the field
We're expanding our reach. At this very moment, our Field Assistant, Stellah, is in the field training Clinical Officers and setting up 10 new sites in Central Province Districts Mkushi and Chitambo (5 respectively)
. Our relationship with Zayohub continues with our service in their some of their sites. Our 100 site target by the end of 2019 is within reach!
As promised in our previous update, we're sharing volunteer Doctor Nikki Hall's blog where she describes her recent stay in Zambia. Read what happens when a Volunteer Doctor has the opportunity to travel to a rural area and meet the local team and our beneficiaries. It's a fascinating testimonial including some wonderful photos of recently established VDrs site, the Zambian Helpers Society Mission Hospital: A Virtual doctor in Zambia.
Case from the Field
Don't miss our latest Case from the Field: "Differential Diagnosis" compiled by volunteer doctor Jo Loveridge, offering a fascinating insight of collaboration between Clinical Officers and Virtual Doctors.
See more examples of other recent cases here.
New addition to the team
In the UK a new volunteer Sheila Harty will be taking up an appointment as Board Secretary. Sheila will be supporting the Chairman and Board of Trustees in their Governance activities.
Know any fundraisers seeking a challenge? We are currently advertising for a volunteer to assist with fundraising in our administrative office in Worthing, West-Sussex.
STOP PRESS
We are putting the final touches to our latest donor report - see our website for a downloadable version
About: the Virtual Doctors provides sophisticated, yet easy to use bespoke telemedicine app and smartphones with internet access. This empowers health workers in rural Africa by enabling them to send electronic patient files to volunteer doctors for diagnosis and treatment advice. See more about what we do.
We rely on donations to help us save lives in rural Zambia.