to attend the first annual fundraising gala which will be held october twelfth emmel downs ballroom the purpose of this event is to raise funds to support vital social cultural cultural programs which the community center provides to over ten thousand people the include great ethiopian food entertainment fashion show live action and a chance to experience a rich heritage and prominent acclaimed ethiopian hospitality we will highly encourage you to attend this is torek event and support our programs for additional information or to purchase tickets you can call the ethiopian community center two zero six three two five zero three zero four zero go to our website at w w w e c c had all that org again that website is w w in today's program we will be introducing you to a group of medical doctors and their support watchers who are in the midst of implementing a remarkable medical capacitive a program gratis of ethiopia often against huge sets of challenges the sound help plan a fundraising event also saturday or sunday sorry sunday october sixth at that an american northwest african american museum here in seattle wash them at all of us or course be invited to this event to better introduce the work of a say summit to work on this project doctors and nurses would go out and help provide surgical procedures on a short term basis for one week as somebody organizations united states and all over the world and this was done for several years but then the group felt that they wanted to follow a different model that this was really not a sustainable type of thing that people would help who got the surgery but in fact when you pack up and leave and go home you've really made no difference in terms of the care provided on the ground locally could help the people that got the surgery but that's as far as it goes and so i do is to try and get involved in a project that would make a difference in terms of the care that was provided along to some sort of more sustainable ongoing project that would along the lines of the old saying that if you teach someone if you give somebody a fish you help them but if you teach them to fish then they can help themselves and so that was sort of the guiding principle of starting this know summarize it it's true we kind of got started in ethiopia maybe five six years ago now and in a sense we kind of found each other we were looking at a number of hospitals in africa there were a number of areas where we saw there was a need alf primary focus in the very beginning was in the operating rooms which is where we were sort of anaesthesia and surgery and and certainly there were a number of areas where we saw we could help  firstly in terms of the physical plant the operating rooms their actual the stage of the operating rooms the equipment that they had in the operating rooms in terms of the  surgical equipment and then secondly in terms of personnel and again that's the medical the the medical students the doctors they're all great that's no issue they have great training and they're good doctors and they d where we felt we could help him was in the serial of him proving equipment improving the way the operating rooms function in helping them develop nursing skills and then a number of other most specific areas we found once we sort of got more where do you start where do you start i mean just everything is a need and truthfully i'm thinking this isn't possible this isn't possible we're a little group you know where we're but i think we've kind of surprised ourselves and one of the big things that keeps us going as if we look behind us to what we've done we've done a lot and conditions are definitely better there today than they were when we started and it is certainly not just our group there's lots of groups sort of trying to help the hospital i think modesty aside we've been one of the more effective ones but the as dr hillman said the doctors there are capable that's not an issue but they're really technology starved they really want the newest and the latest equipment drugs they know about it they read about it they have patients that need it so we've really tried to help them kind ramp up their technology in terms of surgeries and they were anesthetic techniques and things like that so i would say looking at the equipment we've delivered look at that the teaching programs we've done has encouraged us because it it is definitely better  firstly i retired from my work three years ago so i was looking for somebody to get involved in environ tarmon time and this seemed the ideal project to be involved  in to you know something where i can give back here's my medical skills to help people i've worked in seattle for twenty nine years in seattle has lots of doctors and there's no shortage of medical care and we have great medical facilities and here was a way to go somewhere and do something in a place that really has an incredible need for it where our services are really needed for me there's another small dimension is that i'm originally from south africa and so for me the idea of going back to the african continent i went to medical school in south africa and then left then came to united states so for me the idea of going back to africa and giving back something from what i you know were very good when i got my great story was also for me but what it takes to set up such a facility say in africa or back honestly not the same it's much more much less and therefore actually with a small amount of money you can actually quite be fucked over there so sometimes it's great to do are just maybe a skill expensive part of medical care very intensive lots of machines and monitors nurses and personnel involved lab support it's an expensive undertaking to set up an i c u per bed in the united states i'm sure as well over a million dollars for all of the assorted equipment in ethiopia in the black lion in particular they're really working hard to upgrade their i c u capabilities and yeah we've been able to help them we brought them a lot of monitors and beds and to made that maybe for twenty thousand dollars we can bring them up pretty darn good i see you bed with appropriate monitors and things like that so yeah i mean the difference really is from a million dollars to maybe twenty thousand we're bringing equipment that is still very serviceable we're really particular not to bring them jump because a lot of groups have sent a lot of equipment that's truthfully worthless and so we only send the same brand of anything so they can service it we bring technicians who help them learn to take it apart and put it back together we're trying to extend the useful life of all of this for a long time where we are really at least to the best of our billet to try to think that there's this through s non governmental we don't have anything to do with the ethiopian government nor the united states government we don't get any support or any interaction with either nor are we religious we are all kind of grassroots volunteers this is a people to people effort and yeah any but if it comes to the fundraiser and is willing to give us a little money i promise you we will stretch that many many folds over and you're right for what we can do with a thousand dollars there versus here in the states is orders of there they head for new residence in anaesthesia and now they've added another eight so already they're honest to your department as well as tripled in size and with residents of the train and now we've expanded to other areas we've had other area as well and we've now expanded to other hospitals as well for instance one of the for us now is involved in treating patients in kidney failure is another hospital or very close to black  that's going to be expanded on this coming trip and we're also taking people along in the coming trip we're going to look at the idea of setting up a dialysis program at the public hospital the only dialysis available in at us right now is a private hospitals and patien pay a lot of money to get dialysis and so for poor people there is no dialysis option available for kidney failure patients and so one of our next goals is to help set up a kidney dialysis program for the public goal will be there this year i'm going to mention for three weeks this fall we go twice a year for three weeks at a time and long term i can all of our group you we need to have a twenty year horizon on this this is not a quick fix it's going to need to go on long after we're all dead and if we can keep the twenty thirty year horizon and if we can build an organization with people from seattle people from the ethiopian community and doctors from the medical community who are willing to keep that long term view i think we could have a really amazing impact and it's it's different in that it's not a university driven it's not a governmental driven thing it's really a people to people effort i think part of our efficiency  because all of us that go work in medical care we work in yours where the rubber meets the road and so i feel like we have a good perspective on what's important and what's not and we try to really focus on important things so anyway long term i 'd like to see this really sustain this get the ethiopian community more involved we are gaining we're getting more members all the time and it's slow it's a struggle it's a hard sell here in seattle you know most seattle lights where's ethiopia myself included you know first time after time if ever were is if you know but if if we're successful in painting the true picture of what life is like there and what the conditions are at the black cli really hard to walk away and those ethiopians in the community here who are going to addison have family there and more about the black lie and they'll understand immediately because it's desperate and we just s both we have but quite a number of people with us who don't have a medical background because there's a lot of grunt work involved in this we have cleaned rooms and painted rooms and cleaned equipment and there's a lot of work that way so if we have people who are interested in joining us and helping we'd be really happy for that we also spend many many hours in seattle really getting equipment ready to be shipped and that's an enormous job that you can always get ahold of our group through our website our website is seattle eight zero dot org and you can volunteer that way at fundraiser will be there and you can certainly sign up at the fundraiser but we're eager for anybody who's got extra energy i'm willing  all like we can do it for close to twenty but because we get a lot of equipment that's donated we recondition that equipment we've had donated i c u beds oxygen things for about five thousand dollars we figure we can put an i c u it together the fundraiser that's coming up the idea is that those funds will try to kind of put together as many i c u beds as possible well certainly it is good to get different quality parts of a project for instance we started collecting equipment here and having to pack it we have a storage facility the how where we accumulate equipment while we are getting it ready to ship over and so we spend many weekend days and packing the stuff up into boxes and creating it and then we have to get it to a shipping company because we have to deliver it ready for shipping on pallets to boeing or ships those for us for free when so you know starting from the very basic things somebody wants to come and spend some time with us packing sheets in boxes as simple as that and getting things ready to ship over and then when we go on trips there's always the language issue all we've usually had somebody along with us to help interpret her role or there are always some issues that come up and so there is a place for we've taken medical students we've taken other students along obviously th are playing the same role as a physician or a nurse working in a hospital but they're always in a straight and other things that need to be done so certain we're open to that in terms of helping us on our website helping with administrative work helping set up a database of donors there are all kinds of things that we can use help with you know in terms of the overall aspect of all the work we do and certainly people on our website there is a means for people to  send us an email and volunteer and for us to get in touch with them hanging us is seattle a dot o as you mention the trips here you have occasionally that support this so with your next trip maybe to maybe the next to some kind of kind of peace not give it up oh yeah we're going to be leaving after over twenty eight will be there for three weeks  so but i think support to get the message out there and as we mentioned earlier i want to let let our audience know that there is an event sponsored by members of the cuban american community and others of course around the preacher sound on sunday october sixth invitation to you to attend this event to support this great cause and tickets will be available at the door for admission and for additional information also you can call four to five seven seven three six six seven eight and give more information again four two five seven seven three six eight seven eight thank you he