BRINGING HELP AND HOPE TO MANY
The doctor’s visit to a remote village
Community Healthcare Project Tando Allahyar, Sindh, Pakistan
Providing healthcare for women and children - and men - in Sindh
On behalf of all our Missionaries, we want to express our gratitude to you, our readers, for your financial support for Mill Hill Missionaries in their work on the missions. As a result of your generosity, our members are able to bring help and hope to communities that struggle with poverty, disease, conflict, insecurity, and in more recent times the terrible consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic. Every year, the Irish Region of Mill Hill sends half a million Euros to the missions through the Mission Office at Mill Hill Headquarters in Maidenhead, England. In addition, the Irish Region also sends special donations directly to projects run by Mill Hill priests and the people they work with in many parts of the world. These donations are sent to us by benefactors who specify a particular need that has been highlighted in articles in St Joseph’s Advocate. In what follows, you can read the details of one project and expressions of gratitude for financial help received. This is just one of many such projects. (The Editor) 6
Autumn 2021
In 2020, Fr Bernie Luna, mhm, wrote: “This project is helping Kutchi Koli people to access healthcare at the village level. It also seeks to address issues such as safe drinking water, proper nutrition, personal hygiene, sanitation, education of children, improvement of the health status of men, women and children, and empowerment of women and young girls so that they can learn the causes of common health problems. On behalf of the Kutchi Koli men, women, girls, children, and the elderly people who all benefit greatly from the Healthcare Project, I would like to express our sincere gratitude to the Irish Region of Mill Hill for continued financial support of this Project in our missionary apostolate in Sindh, Pakistan. Thank you and all your generous supporters very much.” Autumn 2021
In 2021, Fr. Edson Paguntalan, mhm, wrote: “We are indeed very grateful for the financial support that we get from the Irish Region of Mill Hill; special thanks for the most recent 11,000 Euros (2/2/2021) for our Community Healthcare Project. I am happy to tell you that we started new medical work; the Doctor visits one of the remote villages every Sunday and in each place he has been treating 60 to 70 patients who could never access a doctor’s consultation and medicine without his visit. According to a study conducted by The Lancet Medical Journal, healthcare in Pakistan currently ranks 154th out of 195 countries in the world; we certainly see this. So tackling health issues is always one of the important priorities in our Mill Hill mission in Sindh. It is distressing to see that many of our Kutchi Kholi people die of preventable 7
