We at BHA and at St. Albert’s Mission Hospital want to thank the at the St. Louis College of Pharmacy International Student Organization (STLCOP ISO) for dedicating their 2019 fundraiser to helping the St. Albert’s poultry project.
The ISO students raised $1,479 during the college’s International Week. St. Albert’s will use the funds to expand the poultry project, which hospital director Dr. Julia Musariri first proposed to BHA in March 2019.
“My thanks to the international students and to all who donated to help our hospital,” Dr. Musariri says. “We will use these funds to acquire more birds because the market for the eggs has proved vibrant. People are coming to order large quantities of eggs — 50, 80, 100 crates — which our birds cannot give. People come from as far as Mt Darwin for their orders.
“We have used the income from the eggs to purchase medicines and for payment of our vehicle licenses and insurances. It also contributes to the electricity bill and to buying gloves and suture,” she said.
The hospital sells the eggs at about two-thirds the cost charged by markets. They do this to help ease the problem of widespread hunger in the region, and because eggs are an important source of protein for people who cannot afford meat.
Expansion has far-reaching implications
Expanding the poultry project will enable the hospital to purchase critically needed supplies and maintain infrastructure, further help ease hunger in the area and provide a source of nutrition to hospital nurses and staff, helping them remain on the job. This wide range of benefits adds to the importance and meaning of the STLCOP ISO fundraising effort.
A history of help
STCOP ISO students have a record of assisting St. Albert’s. In 2004, the ISO Student Organization raised funds to help St. Albert’s build a dam and create a reservoir that today provides water to the hospital and for irrigating the 100-hecter farm that grows crops that feed patients.
In 2016, ISO students raised $2,000 that helped the hospital purchase a solar water pump that enables the hospital to continue caring for patients during general power outages.
Thank you, again, to the International Student Organization of the St. Louis College of Pharmacy for its dedication to global health and its far-reaching assistance to St. Albert’s hospital and the people of Zimbabwe.
Keep well, everyone. …Darrell
Background
Earlier this year, BHA provided $10,000 to St. Albert’s to set up the poultry project. The money was raised through appeals to donors and a GoFundMe page. The funding enabled the hospital to clear ground, build structures and purchase 1,000 laying hens and feed.
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