In April 2022 we returned from Zambia where we’d worked for three weeks with ‘Opportunities Zambia’, a Charity for poor children. Our first week was spent working in a large school which the Charity opened in 2013 in Kabanana, one of the slums in Lusaka, where we saw 400 patients. The next week was in a semi-rural school at Chongwe which the Charity opened more recently, where we saw 300 people. Our final week was in Manyama, an isolated lakeside colony down on the border with Zimbabwe, where we saw another 300 patients. A medical friend, Louisa, and a final year student Catherine, worked with with me often under very unusual circumstances. It was possibly our biggest (ad)venture to date, with a four hour boat journey down the crocodile infested waters of the Zambezi, sleeping on the floor of tents next to Kariba lake and being visited by hippos in the night! We spent £1,000 to buy medicines for everyone who needed them and restocked the pharmacy in the rural clinic at Manyama with what was left. We’ve written a detailed report of the trip, along with an analysis of the casemix and recommendations for improving healthcare among the poorest people in Zambia in a sustainable and cost-effective way, and aim to publish this soon.

Fund raising for this Charity has continued with participation in the Edinburgh Kiltwalk every September which was augmented by fund-raising Ceilidhs in Selkirk. Together these events have raised several thousand pounds for the continued provision of education to the poorest people in Zambia. Given that poverty, lack of education and poor healthcare outcomes are inter-related, this feels like a great investment of time, energy and enthusiasm!