The 2024 LED Charity walk will take place on Saturday 7 September in the North Lakes and we hope that many of you will be able to join in what has become an enjoyable event which raises essential funds for the charity.
Full details of the walk will follow nearer to the event. The walk will finish at Bassenthwaite Village Hall where you will be welcomed with refreshments, followed by an evening meal.
In previous years, we have raised a significant sum towards our annual fundraising requirements but we hope that this year, we can better this! With that in mind, we are focusing on two particular key areas of the work undertaken by LED.
This year, we are hoping to distribute solar lights to 3 villages in the Cordillera Blanca and in Nepal, to communities in the Nubri and Na Phu areas. Solar lights are the backbone of our charity work in these remote areas where life is incredibly hard and the people living there have little access to healthcare or electricity.
For those donors who have not had the opportunity to travel to these areas and see our work, you may be thinking, what can light do and how can it bring significant change to these communities?
The lights are transformative. They change the way that people can live.
They help with health issues by reducing chest infections caused by the burning of kerosene for light or cheaper candles.
They allow for development by providing opportunities for children to study in the evenings, and for better social interaction between families and friends.
They provide safety and have helped in the reduction of predators attacking livestock such as scaring away wolves from yak herds in the Thame valley.
And indirectly they have reduced the birthrate in many villages in Peru where families are already on stretched incomes.
The costs for running these two projects will be in the region of £10,000. ALL of your help is greatly appreciated, whatever you can provide is all gratefully received.
We are looking forward to receiving your registration forms and payments.
If you can’t attend, then please consider making a donation, however small – it all helps and it ALL makes a difference.
Thank you all for your continuing support for the work that LED undertakes in remote mountain communities in Nepal and Peru.
2023 was a great year for us. We undertook a number of new projects including eye clinics in the Quishar and Cachipampa regions of Peru and a new solar light project in Numbri, Nepal. We of course continue to support existing vital projects such as the teacher at Thame school in Nepal and the medical post in Quishar, Peru.
We would like 2024 to be even better and hope that you can help us with this.
Our annual fundraising walk will be taking place on Saturday 7 September 2024 in the Lake District. This year we will be setting off from near Bassenthwaite for a walk in the glorious Skiddaw region, returning for the popular drinks and an evening meal at Bassenthwaite Village Hall to round off what we hope will be an enjoyable and sociable day.
Full details of the walk, accommodation options and registration forms will be circulated next month but please now SAVE THE DATE!
It would be wonderful to see as many of you as possible and raise more funds to continue our work.
In summer 2023, Dundee medics Angus, Jed, Lee and Jack spent 4 weeks at the health post LED supports in Quisuar, in Peru’s Cordillera Blanca. Here are the write ups from Angus and Jed (including PDF originals), together with some of their photos. Thank you all for all your hard work in Quisuar and surrounding villages. It sounds like you had a great time!
Rural Medicine in the Cordillera Blanca Mountains, Peru – Angus Pinsky
Placement
We spent four weeks volunteering in the north of Peru, in a health post in the Cordillera Blanca mountains, and in the town of Acopampa, in the northern province of Carhuaz.
The health post is run by the small charity Light Education Development, located in the village of Quisuar. It is staffed by a single nurse, and we were also accompanied by a friendly guide/translator, called Juan. Here we ran clinics for the local people, who visited from the surrounding villages. We could take histories, perform physical examinations, and prescribe from the post’s small medication store (to which we contributed some donated medicines). The local people speak Quechua, and so we had to translate throughout each consultation. Each day we would see up to 25 patients, although the number of patients who visited the post would vary greatly, and they would arrive anytime between 7am and 10pm.
The ailments we witnessed most often were common conditions, such as UTIs, URTIs and GORD, as well as chronic conditions such as osteoarthritis. There was a distinct lack of public health knowledge, meaning our primary role was often educating patients on concepts such as curative vs symptomatic treatment, eating healthily, and drinking adequate quantities of water.
Alongside our general consultations, we also provided basic vision assessments and free reading or distance glasses for those who needed them.
In Acopampa we performed basic vision assessments on all the pupils at a local school, as well as some parents and teachers. Here we also provided free glasses, that had been donated to the charity.
Peru
Peru is a high-middle income country, located on the west coast of South America. It has a population of 33.72 million, and the capital is Lima.
Healthcare in Peru is provided by a mix of government and private organisations, with an insurance-based model. A majority of citizens receive some form of government coverage. However, there are many barriers to accessing healthcare, especially for those in poverty and those who live rurally. We witnessed this during our time in Quisuar, where the villagers who visited us would have otherwise had to travel a long distance to reach the nearest government- run health post, and even further for any specialist care. There are also difficulties for Quechua-speaking communities, as consultations are generally conducted in Spanish.
Organisation
In order to organise our elective, we got in touch with Light Education Development through the contact form on their website, which can be found here:
Volunteering in the Quisuar health post was something truly special. Better than just visiting Peru, working rurally in the mountains made us a part of the community for our time spent there and our welcome couldn’t have been warmer. Our days were kept busy and entertaining running clinics as a team, which consisted of ourselves (5th year students), Juan who acted as our translator/guide and the health post nurse. As students, the exposure and opportunities on this trip was invaluable and helped develop confidence in leading consultations as well as general medicine. From initial presentation to examination and management it was all student-led, great to get a taste for responsibility and we never felt too far out of our comfort zone. We saw a wide range of conditions from many specialities including arthritis, viral coughs, angina, UTIs and vision problems. This healthcare was a huge benefit to patients and with the community being so small, being able to see the impact felt great, from clearing up diseases to providing glasses – this was huge for quality of life as being able to see well enough to thread a needle is very important to the families.
We ran clinics from Quisuar offering our services to the locals who really appreciated our time. It always felt useful contributing our medical management as well as just information which meant a lot to patients who had worries or questions. We also took a couple visits to the neighbouring localities of Seccha and Pochgoj where we were put up in accommodation and held clinics for a slightly larger population of people. This was also where we were able to stock up on biscuits! These journeys gave us opportunities to see more patients and work as a more mobile unit of healthcare. Although our stay here had wifi it couldn’t match the beauty of our surroundings in Quisuar, at ≈2900m elevation the mountain landscape was breathtaking and so isolated.
We also loved the opportunity to get involved in the community by teaching English and running activities with the local kids some afternoons as well as joining in sport festivals who were always keen for some extra numbers to play football or volleyball. Along with my memories of our exciting clinical work and the beautiful location, I’ll never forget Jack’s flying volley from the halfway line to raucous applause from the crowd. My hero.
Our time in Quisuar offered a unique chance to visit the beautiful country Peru, to learn and develop our knowledge and skills in a new environment. And to contribute to and belong in a community on the other side of the world. To experience their hospitality, stories and culture was a treat!
If you’re a medical student interested in spending your medical elective at the Quisuar Healthpost, check out our How you can help page for more details.
A quick update with a few pics from our 2023 fundraiser last Saturday, from Portinscale in the Lake District up, round and down the Newlands Valley.
A huge thanks to all who came along and supported us, and to the local businesses and LED supporters who provided raffle prizes.
We’ll update soon on the total amount the event raised but a great time was had by all on a hot, humid but fun day and evening.
LED’s Annual Fundraising Walk 2023LED’s Annual Fundraising Walk 2023LED’s Annual Fundraising Walk 2023LED’s Annual Fundraising Walk 2023LED’s Annual Fundraising Walk 2023LED’s Annual Fundraising Walk 2023LED’s Annual Fundraising Walk 2023LED’s Annual Fundraising Walk 2023LED’s Annual Fundraising Walk 2023
Light Education Development 