This post here is for my moral support for this cause, though I should be expected to attend and help contribute to the cause, I can't reconcile the concept of wining and dining at a 5-star hotel to help my people. It would be more fulfilling to me if I denied myself the opportunity of sampling SSQ music and gave the money for the ticket directly to the Heart Insitute.
In the same breath, I am putting together a plan to get 10,000 "small givers" in Uganda to raise money (at least Shs. 5,000 each, that is about US$3) for the sickle-cell clinic at the National Referral Hospital in Mulago.
My appeal is all who visit this blog is help put this initiative together...ideas and strategies are welcome, and the cash when the bowl passes by...
Heart disease is increasingly becoming a major threat among children but its significance is normally overshadowed by more pronounced ailments like malaria and HIV. The Uganda Heart Institute receives hundreds of cases of such patients but is limited by the cost of carrying out such operations.
Most of these children suffer from rheumatic heart disease, a condition still prevalent in the developing world and one which damages the heart valves and requires open-heart surgery. Besides, these children come from very poor families and cannot afford the medical fees that stand at a whooping US$5,000 per child on average. Most parents can't afford this and thus give up and leave everything to fate!
In 2005, the Heart Institute hosted the world famous Soweto String Quartet (SSQ) in a concert 'The Heart Benefit Concert' to raise funds. A total of UShs. 30 million (US$19,145 at current rates) was raised and towards the purchase of investigative monitors that have since been installed at the institute to enhance capacity.
This year we intend to once again host SSQ, for a one-day charity concert to raise funds for consumables to handle at least 50 children with Rheumatic heart disease who have been on the waiting list for the last five years. The funds will go towards payment of the Consumables to carry out open heart surgery, and are estimated at a rate of US$5,000 per child locally compared to $15,000 per child abroad.
The concert is scheduled for Friday 13th June 2008 at the Kampala Serena Hotel.
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