Rtns Chuda Karki and Indu Tiwari: Service camp in a Russian village

Today our members Chuda Karki and Indu Tiwari (pictured)* gave us an account of their most recent participation in a visit to help people overseas, which was to a Russian village about 250 kilometres from St Petersburg.

This time it was a service camp rather than just a medical camp. There were four service teams: Construction, Medical, Education and Entertainment. There were also Catering and Security Teams looking after the camp itself, as well as interpreters.

The overseas volunteers came from the United Kingdom and the United States. They flew to St Petersburg, from which there was a five-hour coach journey to reach the village. Altogether 110 people took part in the service camp, which lasted a week. The Construction Team worked on improving the entrance to the local hospital, the Medical Team of twelve people (including Chuda and Indu) saw local patients who might not otherwise receive treatment, the Education Team worked with local children and the Entertainment Team organised a concert.

The Medical Team split into small groups to visit the nearby settlements and see patients there. After that some of them were based at the camp and the patients came to them. The visiting doctors could prescribe some medication, which a local pharmacist working in the camp provided, but for certain controlled drugs the visiting doctors recommended the medication but the formal prescription had to be issued by a local doctor.

Both the overseas volunteers and the interpreters took part in the concert. Chuda showed us a short video of one of the acts, in which a small group of overseas volunteers and local interpreters danced to Indian music. Obviously this was a truly international event!

* [My apologies for the very poor quality of the photograph. I forgot to check the battery on my camera and had to use my smartphone instead. - Webmaster]