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August Update

Dear Friends of dZi,

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, there is a lot going on at The dZi Foundation these days, and it’s all good.

We are now a staff of three in the office, with Garry Schalla concentrating on grants and projects and Sandy Heise keeping Garry and I in line as the office manager. A significant shift is happening this fall; we are placing Project Coordinators from the states in Ladakh, India, and Nepal. They will supervise and improve current dZi supported projects and assist current dZi partners on the ground. They will identify, develop and implement new projects that are consistent with The dZi Foundation’s mission and objectives. Dr. Neena Jain and her husband, Bill Rohs, will be heading up the Ladakh, India team. Ben Ayers will be overseeing Nepal for us. In the next newsletter, we will start to bring you profiles of these compassionate and extremely qualified staff. This is the first time in five years that I will not be traveling to Asia twice in the same calendar year. My personal role at The dzi Foundation is changing as we continue to expand our scope of international work and scale up our internal capacity to handle our continued growth. Frankly, these are all “good problems”. The decision to place project coordinators in Ladakh and Nepal is not a snap decision and I would have never brought up the idea to my Board if I did not have total confidence that Neena, Bill and Ben could do an equal, if not better, job than me. I cannot express how excited I am about bringing them on to move our work forward and deliver help to thousands in need.

The photo at right shows the progress of the new Sikkim Happiness Home. The building foundation is complete and they are coming out of the ground. This is the first floor concrete slab in process of being poured. Poured - as in concrete being mixed, carried and finished by hand. By the way, the building’s foundation is dug by hand, too. In this photo, the first floor is half of the overall floor space for the house and will be three stories when completed. This new home for our girls will be a tremendous help, providing increased stability and reduced costs as a result of no longer having to pay rent! The Sikkim Happiness Home, a home that they can call their own.

All the best,
Jim Nowak
Executive Director

Optic Solutions Program

I would like to “focus” on our vision program, which we started only a year ago. This program has found its legs and really taken off. As dZi continues to expand, new projects like the vision program need to be compartmentalized, for program and financial efficiency. We continue to be extremely fortunate to have talented and dedicated volunteers surrounding our organization.

Enter Ophthalmologist Dr Vicki Coulter and Monica Schalla, both dZi Foundation Advisory Board members. The generous equipment donation from the Denver Eye Surgeons of a Phoropter and Slit Lamp provided us the technical equipment needed for more challenging eye diagnosis. It all came together this last trip, building upon our experience from previous clinics and our sound understanding of how to use the Foco-Meter. The Foco-Meter is an amazing instrument, the size of a soda can, and does not use electricity. ( see photo ) Once we measure the refraction of the child’s eyes, we can create a pair of prescription glasses “on the spot” by using generic frames and interchangeable lenses. Additionally, when a child has more than a refractive correction and needs a lens specifically ground, we e-mail the prescription to Delhi, then prescription lenses are ground and put on the plane and flown up to Ladakh within the week. The glasses are distributed to the child by our in-country staff and then the child is re-tested to make sure the glasses are perfect. When we started a year ago, it cost us $8.90 per pair of prescription glasses we handed out. Now we purchase these frames and lenses in Delhi. The result is that the cost has been cut in half - just $4.60 for each pair of prescription glasses. The results speak for themselves; in one six-day clinic, we screened 784 children’s eyes. We diagnosed and dispensed 137 pairs of prescription glasses. To see the transition from when a child steps up to get their eyes screened and can hardly read a three inch block letter at 20 feet, to being able to easily read 20/20 with their new glasses is literally a sight to behold. Providing the gift of sight, and thus allowing a child full access to education, can be truly life changing – for all of us!

How can you help? Please send us any reading glasses or sunglasses that you would like to donate to the address at the footer. Thanks!

Can I have the envelope please…

And the winner in the category of “most creative fundraising effort” (and I do mean effort) of the year is Joe Schults. Joe entered the Hardrock 100 Endurance Run from Silverton, Colorado, over trails up to 14,000 feet and back to Silverton for a total of 100 miles. Joe completed the race in 30 hours, 29 minutes - good enough for second place overall. He collected pledges for his race and ended up raising $5,500 for the dZi Foundation - amazing in more ways than one. With Joe’s approval, we have directed the funds to our Primary Education Project in Charmile, Sikkim, India.

We started this pilot program in Charmile, Sikkim, India back in 2004. This program sponsors children for primary education, grades one through sixth. The children’s families are mostly Nepalese and work for the Border Roads Organization (a division of the Indian Army), which paves and maintains the high altitude roads in India, close to the Tibet border. The road workers are paid $1.00 per day if they work below 10,000; above that altitude, they make $1.40 per day. We started this project by working with the local school officials, ensuring that we did not over-burden the present school system with the additional students. We now provide uniforms, shoes, schoolbags, textbooks and stationary for 100 children in our program. We also built two separate classrooms for the two hours of tutoring that take place each day after school. In addition to providing school supplies and tutoring, we now provide a daily hot lunch for all of the children. (see photo, children receiving hot milk, bread and an egg).Without this service, the children would not have anything to eat while their parents work all day on the roads. Karma Bhutia oversees the project along with two teachers and one cook. All of this is accomplished for $70.00 per child per year, including staff.

The $5,500.00 that Joe raised will provide primary education to 78 children for one year. We think Joe came in first!