Profile
Name:
Ingrid
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Mar 24, 2008
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2 years ago
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Healing Hands of Gambia is a 501(c)(3) corporation dedicated to creating a medical infrastructure in the Gambia, West Africa, as well as serving as a clinical rotation for medical students and resident physicians.
About Me:
It was in Connecticut where, several years ago, I met my husband, Dawda Sidibeh, which, as it turns out, was the pivotal event for the creation of Healing Hands of Gambia.
Dawda was born and raised in the Gambia, West Africa, and had many stories to tell about deprivation, poverty, and loss of life which usually occurred much too early and much too often from absolutely preventable causes.
Phone calls announcing the death of a young mother after childbirth, usually a cousin or distant relative of Dawda's, were no rarity in our home.
So, we began to think of ways in which we could help the people of the Gambia, and the rest, as they say, "is history."
A trip to the Gambia, where I lectured to the students at the medical school in Banjul and also worked in a small government clinic in Serekunda, cemented in me the knowledge that "medicine in our world" vs. "medicine in their world" are two completely different things. I watched an ambulance in the courtyard of the clinic, which was supposed to take a severely dehydrated two year old girl to the hospital but could not because the ambulance was out of gas. It took the father hours to borrow the gas money, for which he had to pay himself. The ambulance finally left in the late hours of the afternoon ... but the girl died anyway, just two hours later.
It is impossible not to be affected by things like that, not to be aware that in "our world" this two year old would definitely still be running around, causing mischief and trouble, as she should at her age.
Ours is just one organization of many, all of which do great things to make a difference in their chosen area. But we believe that the Gambia is actually small enough for us to be successful, and that the people are few enough for us to be able to throw a "health net" over all of them - and exactly that is our mission.
Country:
United States
Occupation:
Physician
Companies:
Healing Hands of Gambia, Inc.
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