14th July
Colleague Aslam has returned from Malawi ( at his own expense of course) where he spent some time with the director of the Euro Charitable trust ( a privately run trust which has recently taken on an infrastructure to monitor their charity donations ( which are considerable)
The object was to see if their was an opportunity to provide outreach cataract clinics as we do in northern Pakistan. . The Euro Charity does also support various orphanages and facilitates and funds medical aid to such countries and we had all met up in Walsall a few weeks ago as the Euro Charity was very impressed on how we managed to achieve a lot of results with now admin costs and a low budget
At present the other offer by Dr Dhawali the heart surgeon from Birmingham to go to South Africa to give his time to the heart unit there is still awaiting the permission from the South African medical Board to licence him to work there. Maybe they have had football on their minds!!
It is usual to have not so much activity during August and Ramadan but we plan an open air meal for the homeless and disadvantaged in the centre of Walsall outside St Pauls Church during Ramadan when Muslims join the Christians to hand out some excellent Asian food ( donated by a local balti restaurant) to mostly invited clients. This has been very successful in past years and has helped different religious groups to work together and promote greater understanding and respect for the views of Muslims and Ramadan.
This is pencilled in for Friday 27th August... with the Mayor and Chief Executive of Walsall Council joining in the serving of this out door meal.