Dear Friends and Supporters,
Recently, I learned an African proverb: A Bashful Beggar Has An Empty Bowl* Often, when telling a new person about Kateri Medical Services, someone will ask: “Are you a doctor?” And my answer is always: “No. I am a beggar.” I beg my American friends to help us pay doctors and nurses and midwives and lab technicians to serve people who cannot afford to pay for medical care. I beg on behalf of the rural and urban poor in Nigeria who live on less than $2 per day. And I try my best to be a non-bashful beggar. Why? Because it is a matter of life and death for many of the people we serve.
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The biggest challenges of this past year has been the deteriorating security situation in Nigeria and an extended multi-year economic crisis was that left many unemployed in a hopeless situation. Hopelessness leads many people to desperate measures for survival. Kidnapping is rampant in almost all parts of Nigeria and has increased dramatically in the past year. Marauding gangs of young men terrorize rural villages. Tensions over grazing land between nomadic cattle herders and indigenous farming communities often erupt into bloody attacks and counter-attacks. Federal government attempts to crack down on these excesses have been largely unsuccessful because the kidnapping gangs are more heavily armed than the Nigerian army. All of our clinics have been affected by these violent realities and yet, they have found ways to continue the work despite the challenges. Here are a few of the highlights.
Dear friends and supporters, The last two years have been very challenging for billions of people in all parts of the world. And our six partner clinics in Nigeria are no exception. In addition to the Covid pandemic, the security situation in most parts of Nigeria has gotten dramatically worse.
We take great care to spend your money wisely to have a maximum impact of the people we serve. No one on our US team receives a salary. We are all volunteers. Our offices are in our homes. We pay no rent. When we travel to Nigeria, we pay our own expenses. Our administrative and fundraising costs are very low — about 5% of our budget. Thus, 95% of every donated dollar goes directly to build, equip and run clinics and to pay indigenous medical staff.
Double your impact. All donations (including online contributions) received by December 31, 2021 up to a total of $50,000 will be doubled by a matching grant from one of our generous donors. Partner with Kateri Medical Services to deliver life-saving medical care to the rural and urban poor in Nigeria by making a tax-deductible donation today.
Dear Friends and Supporters, Thank you for all of your support for the work of Kateri Medical Services over the past years. Because of COVID restrictions, we have not been able to hold our traditional summer concert series with Tapestry Singers as we have done for many years. However, we are trying something new this fall. Two local musical groups offered their services to help us this year. We had originally planned to hold the concert indoors, but the resurgent COVID numbers prevented this. So, we decided to hold the concert outdoors.
In the recent past, at this time of year I would have been writing to tell you about our summer medical mission trips. However, for the second year in a row, we are not able to conduct our annual medical missions at each one of our 6 clinics. Last summer, the problem was Covid. This year, it’s Covid plus.
In 2020, we helped 11,811 people in our six full-time clinics.
We are pleased to announce two new board members joining our team! Welcome Randy and Larlie!
We take great care to spend your donations wisely to have a maximum impact on the people
we serve. |
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