The trip is coming together nicely! Dr. Tara will travel with a nurse, and possibly a nurse practitioner as well, on February 2nd out of Indianapolis. In Nairobi, we will work with MAREPA (Marginalized Refugee Empowerment Program Africa) to offer free medical care primarily to those in the LGBTQ+ community over 4 clinic days, M-Th. A couple of her contacts in Uganda will join in assisting with the clinic, and they will work with 1-3 local clinicians as well. Staff at MAREPA anticipate up to approximately 100 patients/day.
We expect to see patients with respiratory tract infections, including pneumonia, routine things such as ear and sinus infections, bronchitis, UTIs, STDs, fungal infections, but also malaria, typhoid, and possibly HIV, and TB. Dr. Tara also plans to do joint injections of knees, shoulders, SI joints, etc. as appropriate.
Friday, we will all go on a safari together in Nairobi. This will be an excellent opportunity for team building and will hopefully help make memories to sustain ongoing relationships. I want ACTS10 to continue to come back and work with MAREPA on other future trips. We leave on Saturday, February 10th, and arrive in Indianapolis again on the 11th.
Please consider a generous, tax-deductible donation to help cover the costs of this trip! We need money for airfare at $947/person, medications, which we will purchase there, our modest but safe hotel accommodations, food, transportation, etc. I will be covering the airfare for myself, and the two founders of MAREPA who have now obtained refugee status in the US and have their green cards. That comes to $2841 for airfare alone. I don’t have an estimate for the cost of medications yet, but I would suspect they may fall in the range of $4000-$6000. The hotel costs will run about $500 for the 7 of us staying there. Transportation will cost us in the vicinity of $750. So, that’s $8091-$10,091.
I don’t ask that you cover the cost of the safari for us, and donated monies will not go towards this unless specifically earmarked as such. At $140/person and with 9-12 people going, this will add up, though. I’m asking all of the non-refugee US travelers to cover their own cost of this, so that leaves $140 x 6-9 or $840-$1260.
You can also support Acts10 by streaming and sharing our self-titled album on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, and other digital music services! See the next update for details!
