PORTLAND, Maine — When Portland resident Lilly Angelo returned to her native country of South Sudan in December, she visited her village clinic and was struck by the needs going unmet.
“They had six beds,” she recalled. “The rest of the patients would come and sit on the floors because they didn’t have enough beds. The IVs were hanging from the windows because they didn’t have any poles. In American hospitals, we don’t even have to think about things like that.
“When you get wounded, here they cover you up,” Angelo continued. “There, you’re just out in the open with flies buzzing all around.”
Racks for IVs, gauzes and ointments are among the myriad medical supplies Angelo hopes to help ship back to her native Magwi County clinic after seeing the dearth of equipment there.
On Saturday night, just two days before South Sudan celebrates its first birthday, Angelo is joining with Fort Kent native Ben Collings and fellow South Sudanese humanitarian Mike Bonny to hold a fundraiser at the Southern Maine Community College gymnasium, where attendees can partake in traditional Acholi dance and food. Money from the event will contribute to the trio’s goal of raising $25,000 to send the precious medical cargo to Magwi County.
South Sudan became a country independent of Sudan on July 9, 2011, after decades of intermittent civil war.
“Monday is going to be July 9 and South Sudan is going to be 1 year old,” said Bonny on Tuesday. “But the conditions there have not changed. It’s very difficult for a country to develop in one year.”
Collings said it’s particularly difficult for an independent state to develop when residents are hours away from medical equipment and procedures that in the United States are considered commonplace.
“When people don’t have access to basic health care, their societies can’t grow or thrive,” he said.
Collings, Bonny and Angelo are working with the Scarborough nonprofit group Partners for World Health, which salvages surplus medical supplies due to be discarded by American hospitals and makes them available for donation to overseas communities in need.
“We just need to coordinate shipping the cargo,” said Collings, “and that’s what we’re raising the funds for.”
Tickets to the Saturday night event are $5 for students and $10 for adults, and can be purchased at the door or by calling Bonny at 518-0263. The benefit event will be held from 6 to 11 p.m.
we can hardly help our own citizens and many people go without health care or “medical supplies” that are sometimes desperately needed.
Charity starts at home, time to stop sending money and supplies overseas, fix our own state and country first.
You really have tunnel vision. If you had any clue about how deplorable the conditions are there,then you might grow a heart.Even the worst care here doesn’t compare to the poor people there. Children die of simple diarrhea. You need to spend sometime where you haven’t obviously been pampered.
I have a heart and i have been to under developed countries. My heart breaks for all the people suffering in the world, but the USA is no longer the cash cow it once was. We have homeless, and no just lazy good for nothing folks, but families displaced by losing a job, teens with no choice but to leave home to escape abuse and the list continues. Kids in america die of simple diarea. Its time for us to care for our own.
well then you go write a check and send it, in fact sell your house, all of your assets and send the proceeds to these “poor” places.
I for one would like to see america thrive before some other third world wasteland.
Wow. just wow.
It’s not an American problem, it’s an international problem. It’s not about sending money, it’s about protecting human rights. Bashir remains in power and his Janjaweed attacks continue on innocent and defenseless people.
If I imagine my worst day or week ever, it will NEVER compare to what these people endured just to stay alive.
These folks are true survivors and they want to help those at home who haven’t been as fortunate. Remember that by fortunate, I mean that they managed to live. They won’t ask you personally for a donation and you won’t see a tax increase to fund it. Why take away from something positive that they are doing?
Also, if a child died from simple diarrhea in the US – it would be largely due to caregiver neglect. We have hospitals that are obligated to provide treatment regardless of ability to pay, as long as sick children are brought there to receive it.
“it’s about protecting human rights”
let them stand up for themselves.
and if there are children starving there, here’s a thought: Stop having children you can’t feed!
they bring many of these problems upon themselves.
They were doing fine in the villages until the govt sent people with machetes to hack them to death, set fire to the villages, poison the wells and then gun down any people who survived. These were happy, self-sufficient people who grew their own food, raised their own animals and their children attended school. It seems that you don’t know about the people or climate.
So, lets see if I can simplify this for you: the US govt wants your land (assuming you own any…). You don’t want to sell it and they don’t want to pay you for it anyway, so they decide to send in a team to take it. The US govt then sends 200 people to your house with automatic weapons, machetes, and flame throwers…how would you stop that from happening, exactly? How would you protect your family? You couldn’t.
Suppose you get hit by a drunken uninsured driver and become paralyzed. You can’t drive, you can’t work, and therefore you can’t pay your bills. Would it be ok to say “you shouldn’t have become paralyzed” instead of helping you obtain food?
Why make negative statements about people who are trying to do something good?
“Let them stand up for themselves.” Pretty hard to do when the Moslem government has all the weapons and are engaged in an active policy of genocide against them for no better reason than the fact that they are Christians. Furthermore, they did not bring mass-murder upon themselves. The Islamic government is visiting this horror upon them as a matter of standard policy.
Need to send them some guns, tanks, bombs so they can defend themselves against the Islamic onslaught. The Muslims have been killing them like rats in a barrel for years and the World looks the other way…..