Trustee Trip to Nepal 2023
Our founder, Dr. Kate Yarrow, and Operations Manager, Caz Winter, have recently returned from a very successful trip to Nepal. The short trip was jam-packed with meetings, allowing us to secure and manage partnerships, troubleshoot student issues and move forwards with planning exciting new projects.
Meetings with senior staff at our partner medical schools included the signing of agreements for the scholarships for two very deserving new medical students, as well as discussions of scope for wider collaboration. We also enjoyed meeting our brilliant partner charities, Oda Foundation and PHASE Nepal, which resulted in agreements for two young women to begin their Health Assistant training and collaborations around DFN-funded employment for nurses to ensure provision in rural areas where the staff are desperately needed, but nurse vacancies can be hard to come by.
We were also pleased to secure a meeting at the Department of Health with the Health Secretary. This was a fantastic opportunity to both promote DFN’s work to the government body and also to gather information about how our framework can be adapted in the future in order to increase our ability to ensure employment for our scholars.
Two busy days were spent project planning for our upcoming DFN women’s health camp with our most experienced doctors and administrative staff. This time was dedicated to doing group research, sharing knowledge, and carving out more in-depth plans for the project. Our doctors’ wide-ranging expertise in community medicine and health needs in the area shone through, and we were presented with a wealth of ideas to base our planning on and make this a hugely impactful project, with the potential to help over 1000 women in areas including cervical screening, family planning and health education.
Towards the end of our week, we held a team-building day for the wider DFN family. As always, it was a joy to witness such an inspirational and hard-working group coming together to share their experiences and growth. The group, made up of students, doctors and nurses, enthusiastically shared stories of life as health practitioners in some of the most remote areas and gave vital feedback and input about the future plans of DFN. The power of a shared goal was palpable, and we came away excited about what the coming months have in store!