Leicestershire Paramedic Ben Bell has recently returned from a trip to Malawi, where he supported the charity Village Foundation to provide care to the communities there.
Village Foundations has been a registered charity, based in Nottingham since 2010. Projects include the building and running of clinics, district nursing, nursery school, safe toilets, clean drinking water facilities, medicinal agriculture and more.
Ben got involved with Village Foundations during his time at Nottingham Trent University where he trained to be a paramedic. He decided to choose one of the charities clinic projects as an elective placement to see what challenges were faced by poorer countries and remote communities who don't have access to services like the NHS. While there, he was shocked to see just how heavily local communities had to rely on charities to provide for even the most basic of needs.
Following his return from placement, Ben became heavily involved with the charity helping to develop a new website, fundraising, setting up online donations, sorting our gift aid returns and becoming a Trustee of the charity.
His enthusiasm and passion for supporting Village Foundations led him to his most recent trip where he delivered medications, spent time working in a weekly free clinic and a district nursing and chronic health screening project, checking in on the progress of the charities work to build a new dispensary (mini hospital, similar to a UK urgent treatment and walk-in centre), visiting the local nursery school and meeting with teams working on the Village Foundations projects and also with the local village chiefs, who gifted the charity another plot of land for even further expansion of services.
Ben is looking forward to returning soon to see the new facilities open and running, including wards, treatment centres, consultation rooms, laboratory services, a dispensing pharmacy and a whole team of clinicians providing healthcare services that up until now have simply not existed.
Explaining the reasons behind why he supports the charity, he said:
"I do what I do because having seen the struggles these incredible people go through daily is life changing. The people we serve are some of the kindest, most selfless and loving people in the world. They have next to nothing but would still give you their last penny if you needed it.
"They didn't choose to be born into such an impoverished and vulnerable position and genuinely deserve all the help they can get and more. They are currently enduring unprecedented famine, daily power cuts, medication shortages, fuel shortages, currency devaluations and the withdrawal of an increasing number of aid organisations.
"I hope that by providing them with the quality healthcare, childcare and education, food and clean water they need, they will be able to flourish and develop into a prosperous community. By giving up some time and a relatively small amount of money, we are continuing to have a life changing impact on tens of thousands of people."
You can find out more about Village Foundations and the work they do by visiting their website.