Dr. Ngagay checking a newborn at Rima Village Clinic

In honor of the U.S. holiday of Mother’s Day, May 8, 2016, we are kicking off a new fundraising campaign through Global Giving to support our clinic in Tibet. In 2014 we raised $27,165 and in 2015 another $5,025 for our Safe Childbirth in Tibet project through Global Giving. Our success was due to the exceptional generosity of friends of the Amitabha Foundation, and their friends reached through Facebook, Twitter and other online social media.

Our goal this year is to raise $30,000, enough to pay health workers’ salaries for 1 year, provide training and supplies to reduce infant mortality and purchase a new ambulance for the Rima Village Clinic in Ayang Rinpoche’s birthplace area in Eastern Tibet. Read more about our Global Giving project here, or make a donation now. You can pay online or by check.

Even if you have very limited financial resources, you can help us raise money for this important cause by creating your own personalized fundraising page for this project. You could set one up to commemorate Mother’s Day or Father’s Day, your birthday, your wedding, the marathon you’re about to run, your new business venture, to remember a loved one, or for any other reason you can think of!

Share our project on Twitter or Facebook, so we can reach others who will care about saving mothers’ and infants’ lives in this remote area on the Tibetan Plateau. Every new person you connect with could make the difference in providing a clean home birth with an educated birth attendant and access to emergency care.

Thank you for caring!

Prayer flags raised to welcome guests to Ayang Gompa, Eastern Tibet

A small team of doctors and students visited the Ayang Gompa clinic in Rima, Eastern Tibet again in July 2015. We held review and training sessions for the two clinic doctors, the midwife, and 22 Community Health Educators. Dr. Zhao, who had also been part of the team in 2009, reviewed measuring blood pressure and monitoring fetal growth with ultrasound in pregnant women, and discussed best practices for prenatal and postnatal exams and for vaccinating infants and children.

Your donation today will help repair the clinic roof and keep salaries paid and medicines and clean birthing kits purchased for 2016. Please, can you help us now with a year-end, tax-deductible donation?

Ayang Gompa (center) and Clinic (left) across the Lake of Compassion, Eastern Tibet, with new housing for nomads along the shores of the lake (right)

 

Midwife measures fetal size and position using clinic’s ultrasound

 

Community Health Educators practice taking blood pressure measurements to monitor for preeclampsia in pregnancy.

 

Dr. Ngagay checks newborn

 

Midwife vaccinates a newborn in the clinic

 

Clean birthing kits have been a part of our program to reduce infection and promote safe home childbirth since 2005. Kits contain prenatal vitamins, soap, towels, clean plastic sheet to lie on, clean blade and string to cut and tie the cord, hat, booties and baby blanket.

 

Dr. Ngawang Phuntso dispenses Tibetan and Western medicines from the clinic pharmacy.

 

Monks as well as nomads receive treatment in the clinic.

 

The clinic roof leaking has gotten progressively worse and now several rooms are completely unusable. Repairing the roof will cost $15,000, and is our highest priority this year.

Tibetan mother with infant

To raise funds for our Safe Childbirth in Tibet program, we began a new Global Giving campaign in March 2015. On the first day, we received donations from 44 individuals totaling $3,343—thank you everyone who responded! The campaign will continue until we reach our project goal of $30,000. Since 2004, the Amitabha Foundation has been working in Ayang Rinpoche’s birthplace area to help reduce maternal and infant mortality. In 2013-2014, none of the 202 women who used our birthing kits died, but tragically, 14 of their infants died within the first 3 months. Saving the lives of women and infants is critical to stabilizing families and the entire community. We must continue to educate and provide resources for safe childbirth until women are no longer afraid to get pregnant and all infants thrive. Click Tibet Progress Report 2013 to download our 10-year report.

Help spread the word about Safe Childbirth in Rural Tibet 2015 on Facebook and Twitter.

This year we will provide training materials and resuscitation masks, teach the local health care providers to carry out newborn resuscitation at a home birth, pay salaries for the health care providers, and purchase a new ambulance to give all families access to emergency services. On May 13, Matching Day, Global Giving contributes an percentage so your online donation will be worth more on that day. You may continue to make donations that are tax-deductible in the US every day until our goal is met. Go online to make a donation by credit card or PayPal, Donor Advised Funds, wire transfer, stock, or see below to mail a check in USD or Canadian Dollars.

To donate to our campaign by check (these funds will not be matched but are still greatly appreciated):

1. Make checks payable to: The GlobalGiving Foundation
2. Mail the check to:The GlobalGiving Foundation
   1110 Vermont Avenue NW
   Suite 550
   Washington, DC 20005
   USA
3. On the memo line, please write Project #20098. If you would like to get email updates on the project or a personal thank you, please also write your email address.
4. GlobalGiving accepts any check in US or Canadian dollars.
5. Not in the US or Canada? No problem. GlobalGiving also accept checks in any currency for donations equivalent to $100 USD or more.
   Click here to look up currency conversion rates.

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