Project Namtar 7, Bharta 3
Who are we looking for?
Are you interested in meeting individuals from diverse cultures and backgrounds while offering a compassionate ear to their needs, or formulating long-lasting friendships with people both local and abroad who also share your unwavering passion for volunteering? If so, come and join Team C's upcoming summer intervention trip and flagship event— Project Namtar 7 and Bharta 3 !
Our Aim
Project Namtar is reaching its 7th year now- With our extensive experience in direct service, we aim to provide you with a purposeful experience that not only provide a life-changing adventure for personal growth and discovery, but also promote and preserve the health and well-being of Nepalese individuals and communities
More information for you!
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Timeline
Tea Gathering:
CUHK: 28 Feb (Wed) 19:00-20:15 at BMSB 116
HKU: 27 Feb (Tues) 19:00-20:15 at Laboratory Block, Seminar Room 3
(You are welcome to join us at any session, whichever fits your schedule)
Application Submission: 17/2-6/3
In-person Interview: 9/3, 10/3
Post-interview Task:
Will be release to applicants on 10/3
Deadline: 16/3
Release of result : 19/3
Pre-trip workshop: 23/3, 30/3, 6/4, 11/5
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Application form
Sign up for our June Intervention trip by filling in the form above!
What you'll need to write:
1. A short self-introduction. Tell us about yourself— your hobbies, some fun facts, your skills, we are delighted to know more about our participants!
2. A little statement about why you would like to join our trip.
3. Lastly, propose a new healthcare-related intervention that you think we could do together when we're off to Nepal. You could use your creativity for this one! At Team C we value out-of-the-box thinking, any idea you have is intriguing to us! ;)
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Health Camps
Our health camps are arguably the largest in scale out of all of our interventions since we would be serving hundreds of villagers at a time— providing them with health checks, doctor consultations, as well as prescribing them with medication from our pharmacy for absolutely no price at all.
School Visits
At Medical Outreachers, we hold the belief that to accomplish our ultimate objective of fostering a self- sustaining, healthy community with sound health and hygiene practices, it is imperative to initiate education on such knowledge from an early age.
That is why we make it our goal to visit as many schools as we can during our trips, educating students on our comprehensive Health Curriculum spanning 7 topics with various difficulties specifically designed for students of different ages, as well as providing them all with health checks on diseases common in the local community.
Household Visits
EVERYONE loves household visits, each household you interact with is a new experience every time. You'll get to engage directly with your service targets with the help of our brilliant translators—surveying them on their health knowledge and practices, observing their living conditions all while correcting them on their misconceptions and faulty practices immediately.
This has been the main focus of our January Evaluation trip earlier this year and there was not a day when we did not feel fulfilled with the impact we have made on the community.
Village Talks
Fun fact: this intervention used to be under our larger Health Camps— we would provide health checks, the villagers would go to our specialist doctors and then listen to our village talks while waiting to enter the pharmacy to collect their prescriptions.
However, after careful evaluation on the effectiveness, we have decided to separate Village Talks from Health Camps entirely and make them their own intervention.
Village talks are similar to Health Education in that we would also be educating villagers on various health-related topics suited for everyday life. It's just that this time round, our demographic would be a bit older so we'll have to adapt and tweak things a bit.
Train the Trainer
Now that we've educated the kids and the adults, what's in it for the actual healthcare professionals? Our ultimate objective is to develop a self-sustaining community with sound health and hygiene practices, so are we actually gonna leave them out?
Well, of course not. Welcome to Train The Trainer, or TTT as we call it. This is where we use our more complicated PowerPoints to educate local healthcare workers such as ambulance staff, health post workers and educated volunteers. Due to the more complicated nature of the materials, most of the education would be carried out by nurses/doctors we bring over there with us and we would take up more of an advisory role.
Other Directions
Now that you’ve heard of all our main interventions. Let's talk about some new goals that we have set our sights on for this trip.
After careful observation and evaluation of the data collected from previous trips, we have found that mental health is something that definitely needs to be expanded upon in our interventions. Most locals do not even know how to deal with their negative emotions properly, let alone having to deal with any trauma leftover from experiencing the 2015 Earthquakes.
We believe that with all our progress— getting officially recognized by the municipal government for our continued efforts and statistics collected over time that prove we are in fact making a significant impact on the health knowledge and practices of the population, now is an excellent time to tackle mental health related issues affecting our service targets: we are already giving “psychological first aid” to villagers who attend our village talks, and teaching healthcare workers how to properly give PFA when we’re not in country during TTT. In a culture where women’s rights really isn't a hot topic, we already brainstormed innovative, sustainable ideas on how we can improve the mental wellbeing of Nepalese women.
Tackling the discrepancies between different regions is also one of our biggest objectives. We wish to help areas with limited health knowledge and inadequate health practices by creating customized resources that more comprehensively address their specific health issues.
With a powerful foundation, forward-thinking ideas and an ever growing passion for service, the 15th Executive Committee of Medical Outreachers Team C is devoted to making a monumental impact on our service targets in Nepal.
And we would love for you all to join us.
Testimonials
I signed up for this knowing that ‘Project Namtar 6 and Bharta 2’ was something unique, a rare opportunity to experience life in a place very different from our own. What I did not expect, however, was that it would end up being one of the most memorable experiences of my university life thus far, if not my entire life.
Going in, I had a shallow understanding of the living conditions and practices of households in less-developed regions of the world. Many lived on nothing more than simply what was essential to sustain life–a fireplace, mats, food, a pipeline for water and a latrine. Yet the genuine kindness and hospitality of almost every person we encountered across the 22 days would make me believe that they were the richest in the world.
As we walked along the village streets, children and adults alike would smile and wave at us. As we arrived at each household, we would be greeted with “Namaste”s as they presented us with traditional handmade rugs to rest on. The warmth, joy and laughter I experienced from spending time with the Nepalese community was about as real as it gets.
Across the three weeks there, time slowed down in the best way possible. Beyond experiencing the outside world, my trip was too filled with introspection, self-discovery, and numerous opportunities for personal-growth. Gratitude, struggle, wealth, friendship, ignorance, happiness… These were among some of the things or ideas that found themselves scrutinised upon in my travel journal.
All I can really say is that - I just want to go back :)
धन्यवाद नेपाल (Thank you,Nepal)
Nathan Hui, participant of Project Namtar 6 and Bharta 2