Community Charitable Activities

The Ripple Effect

The Ripple Effect Wellness Organization helps to create healthier communities in Canada and some parts of the world through collaboration, advocacy, education and funding. It relies heavily on volunteers, charitable donors, and good will.

CAPIH Charitable Projects

In keeping with its vision and mission statements, the CAPIH Charitable Foundation and its members are committed to supporting charitable projects in Canada and abroad. We are building upon work that has been done in the past and we are collaborating with these projects listed below.

Ganga Prem Hospice Project (Rishikesh, India)

CAPIH members (Rajiv Samant and Indu Gambhir) are involved in developing and supporting a palliative care initiative in Rishikesh. They are working with the Indo-American Cancer Association (IACA) based in the United States and the Ganga Prem Hospice organization (in India) to help provide a outpatient palliative care program (including a physician, nurse and social worker) which is currently being created (based on a palliative care program model developed by the IACA). This program will offer palliative care services free of charge for those with terminal illnesses in the region. It is the first palliative care program of its kind in the relatively poor state of Uttarakhand, and they are planning to build a new facility on the banks of the Ganges river to house both the outpatient program and an inpatient palliative care ward in the future. Both financial support and follow-up advisory site visits have been pledged by the individual CAPIH member.

Kiwanis Tetanus Immunization Project

Kiwanis clubs across the world are involved in volunteer and charitable projects and Kiwanis International is developing a tetanus immunization project (to reduce neonatal deaths tetanus infection) in India. CAPIH members (Madan Roy and Indu Gambhir) have agreed to have an advisory role for this project. They are also seeking out other members with relevant expertise in this area of medicine to join them.

Inuit Family Health Team

CAPIH has agreed to help support the Inuit Family Health Team that is being started in Ottawa. Dr. Indu Gambhir has been instrumental in helping to create the program from the original concept and is the lead physician involved with program development. They are now looking for medical experts to provide advisory and consultation support. Areas of expertise required include management of diabetes as well as tuberculosis and other lung diseases.

Also Please note some charitable work done by CAPIH members:

IN CANADA

Covent House Toronto

I am currently a proud supporter of the Covent House Toronto, a home for run away children. These poor children need looking after in terms of food, clothes, shelter, medicine and treatments for their drug addictions. I donate very gerenously every two months or so.

CNIB

I have bought books with brail method as well as other equipments.

In addition... Support is provided for a foot and mouth painting school in Toronto as well as many other organizations including a Temple in Toronto that provides free meals to the poor Sri Lankan families living there.

IN INDIA:

ISKCON

I am a life member for ISKCON in Bangalore and support 6 girls who are in their orphanage. Last January when I was there I donated $12,000 towards the new ISKCON Temple being built in Kanakapura Road which will be used to take care of various charities they do. ISKCON is in need of another van to distribute mid day meals to 400 rural school children which comes under ACKSHAYA PATRA-feed the children scheme. At present, they have only 20 vans which is not enough to provide for everyone. I had promised to give them another van next year which will cost at least $30 -33,000 Canadian dollars. Currently, various business firms in India have been donating these vans as a group, and will put a big board at the back of the van with corporate names. I also gave $1000 to CHennai ISKCON towards the feed the children program when I was there. They will give a membership "gold card" which can be used anywhere in the world for you and your family to stay for free in the ISKCON FACILITY WITH FREE FOOD. (Of course you got to pay Rs.200 or so for cleaning and maintainance of the rooms).

If CAPIH members agree it would be great to donate a food van to ISKCON Bangalore. The name of the PRABHJUI who is in charge as well as receipts would be issued.

GLOBAL

Medical and Surgical Camp

Dear Friends,

I am once again proud and grateful for another very successful year of the 37th annual Medical and Surgical Camp. This special commemorative year marked 10 years since the devastating earthquake. We have used this event to be a tribute to the amazing strength and dedication of humanity to overcome obstacles and triumph. We had over 100 volunteers and doctors come from the United States, Canada, U.K, and Ireland to work long hours for a mutual goal of uplifting the people of India. This year also marked the opening of the second floor of Jaya Rehabilitation, which has grown from a16 bed to a 48 bed rehab hospital. A further testament, that from the rubble of the earthquake we have been able to create a diamond. As hard as we have all worked this year, our work is still not done, we have scheduled a total of 40 additional camps throughout the year to provide follow-up care.

This year’s camp started January 2nd with Urology camp, where over 60 surgeries were successfully performed. Most of our surgeries, 40, were kidney and bladder stone removals, and 13 of them were children. This part of India has very high saline content in the water causing stones. Next we had ENT camp, which performed surgeries and distributed 5 hearing aides to children. During the general surgery camp we performed 152 surgeries. One of which was removing a 7.5kg fibroid tumor from a 65-year-old woman. We also removed a non-functioning kidney of a 16-year-old boy that was filled with 11 L of fluid. During the cardiac camp we triaged over 400 patients and will be sending 62 patients, 20 of which are children, to Mumbai for cardiac surgery. It was another very busy year for eye camp, where we performed 646 cataract surgeries. In February, some of our dedicated eye surgeons will come back to complete 44 more cases that involve patients with only one eye.

The camp was a bustle with hundreds of pediatric patients this year. We performed two V-P shunt procedures for children with advanced hydrocephalous. The gynecologic camp for the first time were able to perform state of the art cervical cancer screening on 125 women that came to the gynecology camp. They also performed 31 hysterectomies, in addition to many other procedures. The child health program had another successful year where they educated 4000 children, completed 1,200 eye exams and made and distributed 60 pairs of glasses to school aged children. The breast cancer-screening program screened and educated 437 women, and they also detected 13 ‘lumps,’ these women were sent for further testing. The smoking cessation program spent the entire camp educating patients and family member of the dangers of smoking and the harm of tobacco. The staff at Jaya Rehab has also arranged 15 special courses throughout the year for other health care professionals to attend. The trust has continued to have ongoing affiliations with NYU School of public health, NYU dental school, Wharton Business School, and the Ophthalmology department from Ohio State University.

We heartily thank everyone for their hard work and dedication to the trust. We would specifically like to thank KOJAINA, JAINA, Jain centers of U.S.A. and Canada, and many other organizations. The success of the trust is only as strong as its donors and volunteers; because of this support we are able to provide medical services to the impoverished people not only from Kutch, but all over India. Thank each and every one of you for your continued support to this great humanitarian cause.

Respectfully,

Vijay Chheda, Trustee

Please contact CAPIH for more information and to become involved in these and other worthwhile projects!