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January Update

Dear Friends of dZi,

As we turn the page into the New Year, it is appropriate to look back on a few of our project accomplishments and also to look forward to the amazing opportunities ahead.

The dZi Foundation's partnership project with the Himalayan Dental Relief Project took a quantum leap this year. In four separate clinics, we served 2,092 children with preventative dental care. This represents $427,216 in donated dental care. We will hold six clinics in the coming year. We are actively seeking dentists and hygienists for our two upcoming Ladakh, India clinics ,the last week of May and first week of June. Please contact me if you are interested in participating in a service trip of a lifetime.

Our two girls homes, Friendship House in Kathmandu and Sikkim Happiness Home in Sikkim, India, continue to flourish. We have added four new girls to our Sikkim home bringing our total number of girls at both houses to 40. We are actively looking for sponsors for these new girls; contact me if you are interested. In addition, we have just moved our Sikkim girls to a much larger home in a safer neighborhood that will give them the room and security they deserve.

The Nutritional Rehabilitation Home in Kathmandu will see a rooftop expansion that will make room for eight more beds. This will allow 70 more children over the course of a year to recover from malnutrition. At the same time their mothers become educated on child care and better nutritional practices before they are released to return to the their village.

We are planning to break ground on a 1,250 sq. ft. building in Leh, Ladakh, India this coming spring. This facility will anchor the dental and vision clinics in Leh, the capitol of Ladakh. This location will also allow us to go mobile with our clinics to remote regions of Ladakh and better serve the children of this amazing high altitude culture.

With all of our projects totaled we served just over 5,000 individuals in 2005, and estimate we will reach over 8,000 children, women & men in 2006.

Thanks to your help, we’ll continue to make a positive impact across the world for many years to come.

All the best, Jim Nowak
Executive Director

Pakistan Relief: 40 emergency shelters for 400 people

We ended 2005 with a project in the earthquake-stricken district of Bagh, Pakistan to provide Improvised All Weather Rapid Shelters (IRAS). Your strong funding of dZi this year has allow us to jump on this project with oversight from dear friends on the ground in Pakistan. Dr Neena Jain and her husband Bill Rohs are strong supporters of the dZi Foundation and were instrumental in helping us open our girl’s safe house in Sikkim, India. They are now volunteering for Austrian Aid International in Bagh for the next six months.

We had met with Bill and Neena in early December in Denver, just before they left for Bagh. They introduced us to the concept of the IRAS and then put us in contact with Marc Preston, the CEO of AAI. Marc located the materials and dZi wired funds for their immediate transport to the affected region. The materials will arrive this week and construction will start immediately.

The IRAS are simple to build and are much more than just an emergency shelter, as they can be expected to last two to three years. The materials can be easily transported from the end of the road to remote mountainous villages. The shelters can be constructed by locals familiar with the materials and methods of construction and do not require any special tools or equipment to erect.

We will update you as soon as we get an expected report from Neena and Bill on the progress of this project; we also hope to have more photos of the completed shelters. Thanks to you, we could move rapidly to shelter these people from the harsh winter in this mountainous region.

Volunteerism, part of your 2006?

Asstant Director Garry Schalla writes:

Selflessly undertaking his task on the last day of the Leh dental clinic, Pete Stravlo stood next to the dental table. After the last week of volunteering where needed, getting children lined up for intake, setting up and breaking down the clinics each morning and evening, and essentially taking complete charge of the optical clinic, Pete now faced a more daunting task…

Volunteerism: “oh, I’ll help with that”, or “sure, I would be happy to work on that committee”; we make these statements every day with little thought, until the time comes to fulfill the responsibility. True volunteerism comes from the heart, with the full realization of the breadth of commitment needed to complete the task. A willingness to provide whatever is needed at that moment, regardless of the challenges of the request.

To travel half-way around the world takes even more dedication. The cost of travel, loss of income and time away from family all deter many well-intentioned volunteers. But for those willing to take that leap, the rewards are truly life changing. Jim and Kim took that leap in 1997, taking on a program (the girls' safe house in Kathmandu), which has become the flagship of the dZi Foundation. The overwhelming success of the Friendship House provides the basis for the Foundation’s current growth and development.

I invite you, as a former volunteer, to join the dZi Foundation this year. Travel with us in the spring or fall. Make a difference in a child’s life, and in the process, change your views, your perceptions, and your life.

…Pete willingly accepted his position that morning, listening carefully to the instructions, and then dove in. Forty-three (43) extractions later, Pete sat down with a tired smile; he had helped countless patients, doing what he could: volunteerism at its finest. [Pete and his wife also sponsor Ongkila Bhutia at the Sikkim Happiness Home.]

The dZi Foundation instills in both our girls' homes the concept “With privilege, comes responsibility”. Become a Pete, become a volunteer!

Namaste,
Garry