Flying to Tanzania with Save A Child's Heart (SACH)

This October I'm flying to Tanzania, to accompany doctors from Save a Child's Heart organization (SACH) that I've been working with for some time now (see Humanitarian Projects page).

On October 20, 2013, a medical team from SACH is traveling to Mwanza, Tanzania, to help a local team operate on children with heart disease. This would be the first time in the history of Tanzania that a local surgeon performs open heart surgery. The surgeon, Dr.Goodwin Godfry, finished a six year SACH training program in the Volfson medical center in Holon, Israel. He is the first and ONLY children cardiologist in Tanzania today, a country with the population of 45 million. Together with him, 10 staff members from his hospital were also trained in different areas related to children heart surgery, and the whole team is going back to Tanzania to perform a historical surgery on October 22.

Guess who's tagging along?

That's right, me.

I have been collaborating with SACH for a while now, singing in their benefits for free, visiting the clinics and the children, talking about them in the media, but this time I take my involvement even further, and I'm joining the medical team in the field. I will be writing a blog from there, and I hope you follow it and share.

SACH is not only involved in Africa, it is very much active in our region as well, treating children from all the spectrum of identities, regardless of religion, nationality or color. They treat Israeli children as well as Palestinian ones, in the halls of Volfson medical center you can meet a Palestinian family from Gaza and an Israeli family from Sderot, both very worried for their sick child, the differences fade away in such moments, and the similarities are magnified. SACH treats children from all over the Arab countries as well, lately they hit the headlines with the touching story of the Syrian girl who received a life saving heart operation, but far away from the headlines, these doctors are doing scared work each and every day, providing free service to people who cannot otherwise afford it.

In the photo with me, a dear child named Izac. An Ethiopian orphan who was brought to Israel for surgery. Unfortunately, Izac's diagnose was done too late and he did not survive. His loss made me even more determined to help this organization reach children like him in the right time, diagnosing a child in time is one of the most important factors for his survival, and SACH is doing a lot in this field as well, training local doctors in many places in the third world to observe and notice symptoms in time.

You can find the link to SACH's website on my Humanitarian Projects page if you want to learn more.

And my blog from Tanzania (starting October 20) will be posted here as frequently as possible, pending on internet connectivity in Mwanza..

Take care

Mira