Location: Nepal (Dhading district)

In 2015 during the Nepal Earthquake, when I was volunteering for a Non-profit to provide the earthquake victims with relief materials I got the opportunity to travel remote places of my country. In one of those travels, I came across a village where even after months of earthquake, people were deprived of getting access to basic healthcare services. The situation of people living there was horrible. Fortunately, we had a team of health professionals who were able to treat these people and provide them with the necessary medications. That moment I realized the dire need of basic health care supplies. I knew I had to do something for my community.

Then, back in January 2020, I came up with an idea of “Furke Thaili” to at least startup with something to help these communities. I didn’t know what was coming in the next few months. I wanted to start with a pilot project to see the impact and benefit of my project idea. Therefore, we installed locally made wooden storage boxes similar to vending machines in 4 different places of targeted community in Dhading district of Nepal. These boxes carried supplies of non-prescription drugs packed in Furke Thailis (traditional cloth pouch carried by women in Nepal) which are sustainable alternatives to plastics.

All these nonprescription drugs were carefully reviewed with Pharmacists and Health Professionals to avoid the mix of prescription drugs. We also added first aid kits, gloves and masks along with over-the-counter medications. Qualified individuals from the community were trained and assigned the responsibility of these vending machines. They were provided with log books that contained lists of over-the-counter medicines, coded with a unique number which aligned with the corresponding Furke Thailis inside the vending machines. A copy of those log books was kept with us to track the uses and number of medications sold. I wanted to prevent the misuse and risk of taking combination drugs and at the same time make it very cost effective so that each person in the village could afford to buy these medications. So, each medication was tagged with cheapest price as possible.

After the pilot project was implemented, the pandemic took place and the whole country has been in lock down since then. As businesses shut down and schools were closed, people started traveling back to their villages. These increased the demand of basic supplies in remote areas. On the positive note, this pandemic has been playing a very crucial role to my project. As going out of the house became life threatening people were unable to go to the healthcare facilities to buy simple over-the-counter medications when their family members got ill. In addition to that, in remote areas healthcare facilities or even pharmacies are miles and miles away or sometimes there isn’t one. Even though this was my pilot project, it acted as a major relief in the targeted community by providing them easy and immediate access to nonprescription drugs, first aid supplies and most importantly masks and gloves.

We are very grateful to serve our community in this unprecedented time. My team has been receiving frequent calls from people to refill those vending machines as they are running out of the supplies, to let us know that people from various communities have been coming out to our pilot project locations to buy these medications and to show their appreciation for implementing such projects in their community. Now more than ever me and my team we are planning to build more of these vending machines in other rural areas, refill the medications and improve the project idea to help it sustain for long run.

Support

Being the pilot project the initial cost was around $600 for vending machines with medications and other miscellaneous costs. Currently, we are improving the project idea to expand it to other remote communities. Therefore, we will be seeking financial assistance, individuals with skills and expertise and partnerships from various organizations. Additionally, we will also be applying for grants and competitions that are relevant to this project.

Other needs: Volunteers, Access to information, Space for online convenings (e.g. GoToMeeting)

For more information contact covid19@unmgcy.org