Miles Levin Nepal Foundation For Health and Education Newsletter May 2012

Dear All,

Namaste! It has been 16 months since the Miles Levin Nepal Foundation For Health and Education (MLNFHE) was founded. I want to update everyone on all that has happened in such a short time.

THANK YOU!

Richard Keidan
Founder and President, MLNFHE

Mission

MISSION: MLNFHE is dedicated to improving the lives of children both at home and abroad. We are working in the district of Khotang, Nepal located in the remote Himalayas, providing better access for children to educational opportunities, public health and health care. With the newly established Miles Levin Pediatric Hospital Fund (MLPHF), we are assisting families with children undergoing treatment for Pediatric Cancers and other serious childhood illnesses.

BIRMINGHAM BIKE FESTIVAL (BBF) AUGUST 26 2012

Jeff Surnow is running the second annual BBF and is providing us with an event for our official MLNFHE 2012 Fundraiser. We will have a "race" (really a parade style event) called "Miles4Miles". This will be a twenty minute bike ride for children and young adults covering a half mile course through downtown Birmingham. Participation is free and children (either as individuals or teams) will be asked to raise funds. Half of these funds will be used for our projects in Nepal and half will be used for the Miles Levin Pediatric Hospital Fund right here at home. If you would like more information, to participate, to form a team, or to make a donation, please go to our crowdrise page http://www.crowdrise.com/miles4miles

Miles Levin Pediatric Hospital Fund MLPHF

MLNFHE has recently begun to make an impact at home as well! With the creation of the MLPHF, we will provide financial assistance to families in southeast Michigan who have children undergoing treatment for Childhood Malignancies and other serious childhood illnesses. This fund has been set up with the assistance of Beaumont Health System and Children's Miracle Network and is being sponsored by seed money from the Oakland Medical Group and Comprehensive Urology Group, both members of Michigan Health Professionals, and the Beaumont Foundation.

Current Projects

The Dipsung Toilet project is providing toilets with individual septic units to all homes and schools for a population of 1,500 villagers. It is 60% complete, with anticipated completion in the fall of 2012. We are partners in the Rakha Hydroelectric Project which has been recently completed! We bought land for a new school and preschool in Dipru, and the Dzi Foundation will begin construction in the near future. We are currently providing scholarships for two students to attend school.

Future Projects

We have several proposals from our recent trip to Khotang which are all being considered for funding and will begin within the next six months. This includes another toilet project in Rakha and Sungdel which will begin upon completion of the Dipsung toilet project. We will build two sub health posts (the village equivalent of a rural hospital/clinic), the first in Dipsung (it was destroyed during the recent Civil War), and the second in Rakha (it was destroyed in the recent earthquake). We are also looking at increasing the capacity of a third sub-health post in Sungdel. We would like to start a scholarship to train mid level health care workers this summer. This would select women (only) from our villages who have a tenth grade education and provide an 18 month training course specializing in maternal and child care. We would ask for a minimum five year commitment. Upon completion they would come home and provide health care for their own communities. There are two more children we would like to sponsor in school and we are currently awaiting appropriate documents. Finally, we are looking at a proposal to send 36 Nepalese public health students to Khotang, where they will conduct house by house (hut by hut) research on the status quo of public health and community health. This would also include an educational curriculum for the locals, creation of micro-health projects and publications in peer review journals.

Our Partners

None of what we are doing could be done without talented and dedicated partners. First and foremost, our partners are the people of Khotang. All proposals/projects are initiated, managed, and maintained by them. We continue to benefit from our mentor foundation- the Dzi Foundation- who taught us so much and continues to advise us. We have recently gone to the field with the staff from the Nepal Public Health Foundation, who are helping us with our short and long term health plan. These plans were initiated with the help of the Patan Academy of Health Sciences (PAHS), a medical school in Nepal dedicated to training physicians in rural medicine, and we continue to build on our relationship with PAHS. The Nick Simons Institute (NSI) is an organization dedicated to the training of mid level health care workers in Nepal. They continue to serve as consultants and will help us in the placement of our scholarship students.

Your Support

Miles had a dream of making an impact. Because of your generous support, Miles' dream has become a reality. You are the MLNFHE! We need over $100,000 to fund our current and future projects as outlined in this newsletter. We kindly ask for your continued support! The good news is that we will not ask you to get dressed up on a Sunday night and go to a fundraiser for MLNFHE. The bad news is that we will still ask you for a donation, hopefully of the same magnitude of your contribution last year. We cannot do this without all of you and we appreciate you! For more information or to donate, please go to our website miles2nepal.org, or you can contact me on my cell phone @ 248 318 4779. If you have already given a donation for 2012, we thank you!