Japan
I just completed some great meetings with our Project Managers here in Japan, FCF Partner Side-By-Side International (SBSI). Koji and Akiko are just days back from Cambodia, where a great part of their SBSI programs are focused. (SBSI also sends humanitarian relief ranging from medical equipment, emergency vehicles, computers and so forth to a number of other countries of Asia and Africa.)
In Cambodia, Side-By-Side International is helping develop both the medical and educational infrastructure of the country, and after bringing in 20 ambulances, fire trucks and other emergency vehicles and medical equipment from Japan, their latest undertaking in collaboration with the Cambodian government and local partners integrates all this and more into the country’s first 911 emergency response program. The emergency response program (known as 119 in Cambodia) is being developed in the capital, with strategic plans to expand this onto the various main highways and transportation arteries.
Side-By-Side International and their local partners are also completing a large medical clinic just off a well-used 350-kilometre portion of highway where there are presently no medical facilities to take people to that are involved in the many traffic accidents on this highway, let alone for the people of the region.
(Fatal car accidents —such as this one pictured that happened in the vicinity of the new facility being built –are the 2nd highest cause of deaths in the country, and amongst the worst in South East Asia.)
The partners that SBSI work with have designed an amazing eco-friendly state-of-the-art medical facility that incorporates all forms of renewable energy, coupled with organic agricultural practices that will provide food, rice and fish for the patients and local residents, while also providing an air-conditioning-like-effect for the entire building in addition to technology that retards the entry of malaria-carrying-mosquitoes.
This hospital is also being integrated into the country’s 119 GPS emergency response system, featuring ambulances bays and emergency services. (A remarkable and exciting undertaking that I have barely touched on here!)
For Family Care Foundation’s part in the above, our latest grant to SBSI provides the solar panels and storage system and generator for the medical facility, to provide the electricity to run all the state-of-the-art medical equipment that has been donated from Japan.