The Tzu Chi Kedah liaison office held its first free clinic at Mukim Pedu in March this year. Again on June 27, more than 160 Tzu Chi members, eleven doctors, six nurses and eight pharmacists provided free medical services to 360 villagers. It has been decided to hold a free clinic every three months.

The way out of poverty

Around two hundred people live in a run-down district in Bangkok. They came from northern Thailand to find work, but they are blocked by the fact that they are illiterate and have no special skills.

There are problems with health for the elderly and children and schooling for the children. Local Tzu Chi people are giving them rice, food, daily goods, infant milk powder, school and transportation expenses for children, and medical and funeral expenses for the elderly.

In the suburb of Chingmai, sixty-two girls live at an all-girls orphanage and study in junior and senior secondary schools. A school principal and two teachers provide education to the residents, some of whom have gone to university and nursing school. These girls raise their own vegetables and take turns preparing meals.

The orphanage finances are in bad shape, but the residents are polite and study hard. Local Tzu Chi people are helping out with food and vegetables and will provide chemical fertilizer and seeds for the orphanage farm. Since a good education helps young people to get good jobs and climb out of poverty, Tzu Chi is also providing the salary for one Chinese language teacher, so that students will be prepared to work in companies that deal with China or Taiwan. Since 1997, the Thai government has provided Chinese language education in schools, but there is still a great shortage of Chinese language instructors.

Rebuilding Nicaragua

When Hurricane Mitch swept through Central America last October, floods killed thousands of people in Nicaragua. The sudden rising of water levels in lakes also forced tens of thousands of villagers living by the lakes to evacuate from their homes. Tzu Chi first donated twelve containers of clothes from Taiwan to Nicaragua in February this year. In late March, the Tzu Chi Southern California branch donated two containers of food, shoes and three thousand sewing machines.

From July 10 to 15, a Tzu Chi inspection team from Texas went to Nicaragua to find out what needs the victims of Hurricane Mitch might still have. They visited the Catholic Caritas organization, the Red Cross and other charity organizations to learn about the current situations of the disaster areas. They also went to a garbage dump in La Romana, where some four thousand people subsist on garbage.

The Tzu Chi team decided to hold free clinics and a large-scale food distribution for 5,500 people in October. A nearby elementary school with twelve classrooms will be a suitable site for the distribution. The school is very old, the roofs leak and the students lack pens, notebooks and other supplies. Tzu Chi will help repair the roofs and distribute school supplies to these students.

Tipitapa, with a population of 1,106, is located about forty kilometers from La Romana. A French charity group plans to build classrooms for the villagers, and Tzu Chi will provide sewing machines and cloth to villagers in order to create jobs and improve their lives.

"Banquet" in Machap Umboo, Malaysia

The Malaysian and Indian people of Machap Umboo work as rubber cutters and laborers in palm tree plantations. The lives of the Indians are especially hard because they are foreign workers and are thus unable to enjoy good medical care. On July 18, the Tzu Chi Malacca branch organized three doctors, five barbers and ninety Tzu Chi volunteers to provide free medical services and haircuts and to distribute food. A total of 84 people saw the doctors, 140 people received haircuts, and 187 people received food packages.

In addition to the 90 households in Machap Umboo that received these services, Tzu Chi members also used trucks to transport 140 Indians and 10 Indonesians from nearby plantations to receive the services. They also handed out used clothes and cooking and eating utensils, so that these people could enjoy a better life.

According to doctors, people in the village were generally healthy, but they had skin diseases and colds because they did not understand proper hygiene, and they suffered from malnutrition.

Free clinics in Indonesia

The Tzu Chi liaison office in Indonesia held large-scale free clinics in Jakarta and Serang Counties in July, helping a total of 8,464 people. In the future, Tzu Chi will hold free clinics every month, especially for poor, undernourished children in Serang.

On July 3 and 4, the Tzu Chi liaison office, the Prajna Foundation and the Jakarta police headquarters provided 280 medical personnel, 526 volunteers and 126 police officers for a free clinic in Kantor Kecamatan Cilincing. At this free clinic, two children died because they had not received treatment earlier. One of them was an eleven-year-old boy who died of serious malnutrition.

Thus, the liaison office held another free clinic in Serang County on July 24, especially focusing on undernourished children in Kragilan village. Ten medical personnel and forty volunteers treated 409 children. The chief of the Serang public health bureau awarded Tzu Chi as the first group to help the children.

The liaison office holds free clinics twice a month for malnourished children. The office also provides medicine, specially designed milk powder and food for undernourished children, and it plans to expand services to other areas in Serang County.

Annual free clinic in San Bernardino

On July 11, the Tzu Chi Free Clinic of Alhambra, California, held its annual free medical examinations in San Bernardino. Services in general medicine, internal medicine, Chinese medicine and dentistry were provided by 73 doctors and 77 volunteers from every part of California.

At an organic farm in San Bernardino, tents were set up and water was sprayed around the tents to lower the temperature. Volunteers also handed out cold drinks and ice cubes to the medical staff and patients.

The dentistry department was the most popular. Ten dentists were kept busy cleaning, filling and pulling teeth, and providing other necessary services.

Eight traditional Chinese medical doctors applied various traditional methods to treat patients. Most patients were Caucasians and Chicanos, which showed that even non-Chinese people welcomed such treatments.

The Free Clinic provided six free shuttle buses to go between the clinic site and local communities. Spanish translators were on hand, and other volunteers helped patients to register or assisted doctors with other services. They also provided drinks, lunches and fruit to the medical staff and patients.

In San Bernardino, forty-five percent of residents are poor and speak only Spanish. Many are ineligible for social welfare and so are helpless when they are ill. The Tzu Chi Free Clinic has been helping these people with its annual free clinics since 1997.

Tzu Chi and MDM sign agreement for Kosovo

Wang Tuan-cheng, deputy CEO of the Tzu Chi Foundation, signed an agreement of medical cooperation with Michel Brugiere, CEO of Medecins du Monde, at the MDM headquarters in Paris on August 10. Wang observed that Tzu Chi is a newcomer in international relief work and still has a lot to learn from groups like MDM. The organizations will join forces in providing medical assistance for Kosovar residents in Pristina and other regions.

The project, which began in June this year, includes establishing medical centers and mobile medical teams, providing medicine to local medical stations, and constructing water supply facilities for villages where drinking water has been contaminated.

On August 12, four Tzu Chi representatives met with members of MDM and other local nongovernmental organizations in Kosovo. The Tzu Chi representatives also followed up on the usage of two thousand tons of fertilizer donated by Tzu Chi to local farmers through Mercy Committee International on August 3.