Getting Back to Giving Back…
There are always many memorable experiences when traveling to Africa but there was one clear highlight during our trip to Zambia and Victoria Falls in June 2021 – returning to Mugarameno to visit the KAI Foundation’s first project!
A brief background for anyone unaware of our philanthropic work— the KAI Foundation is a 501c3 charity that we started in 2015 with the goal of giving back to some of the people and communities that have given KAI and my family so much over the years. Six years ago, following a visit to Mugarameno— a village in the Chiawa area about 40 km west of Lower Zambezi National Park— and seeing the healthcare facilities (or lack thereof), we decided that the Foundation’s first project would be to build a maternity ward for the people of Mugarameno and the surrounding villages (roughly 10,000 people). The Claire Kartagener Maternity Ward opened in December 2016 and 220+ healthy babies have been delivered in the nearly 5 years since!
We have been able to build and maintain such an important project thanks to the help of our dear friends and partners at Royal Zambezi Lodge. They oversee all the projects in the area that we are funding and help with maintenance and procurement & delivery of supplies. Every time we visit the area and stay at Royal we take the one hour boat ride or 90 minute drive to visit Mugarameno. Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, we’ve not been able to do this for about two years so this visit was even more special than most. We brought suitcases full of baby blankets and clothes, much needed medication and other supplies such as thermometers, heart rate monitors, bandages and more. Despite having to keep our masks on throughout our visit, Nurse Rosemary’s smile was radiant and ours were equally large.
While visiting and catching up with Rosemary, she shared the wonderful news that the Claire Kartagener Maternity Ward just received recognition from the government as the cleanest pre/post-natal care facility in all of Chiawa county! This is most impressive because there are dozens of similar facilities much closer to major cities that should be easier to maintain than our small maternity ward quite literally in the middle of nowhere.
In addition to catching up with Rosemary and delivering supplies, this visit allowed us to check on the progress of our more recent project: the construction of accommodation for a doctor in the village. The Zambian government agreed to place a doctor in the village to assist Rosemary and the rest of the clinical staff if we constructed an adequate living space. We were thrilled to see that this structure is complete—and MASSIVE— with a home for the doctor and a connected residence to be used for volunteers (we are working with several universities to try to get some students to volunteer at the clinic and then enjoy some safari) that come to help.
Finally, and probably most importantly, we had the opportunity to speak with Rosemary about the coronavirus pandemic and the importance of vaccination. She, like many others across the African continent, was skeptical of the vaccine but after speaking with our group and hearing about our experiences getting the shot(s) she said she would now get vaccinated! The clinic at Mugarameno was designated as a vaccination site so Rosemary and her team will be administering the shots when they are delivered, making it even more important for her to be able to encourage her neighbors and peers to get the shot with confidence once she’s vaccinated.
All trips to Africa are special, but there truly are no words for the feeling you get when you see something you helped build positively impacting the lives of so many.
If you’d like more information on our efforts please visit www.kaifoundation.net or contact us at foundation@kainyc.com.