Molly and Imi's Marathon for Rural Medicine
Donation protected
Hi, my name is Molly and along with my friend, housemate and fellow medical student Imi we have concocted a plan for our medical elective which somehow involves travelling to Central America, Volunteering with two Nonprofit medical charities, raising money for these charities and running a marathon!
In April of 2024 we will travel to an Archipelago of Islands off Panama's north coast where we will spend 4 weeks volunteering with a medical charity called 'Floating Doctor's'. We will then ferry, bus, trek our way to the base of a volcano in Northern Nicaragua where we will again spend four weeks volunteering in a rural clinic run by a second healthcare nonprofit initiative called 'Health and Help'.
As both of these charities rely on fundraising efforts to provide healthcare we have decided to raise some money for them both over the next few months. To hopefully help our fundraising efforts we have both entered to run in EnduranceLife's 'Northumberland Trail Marathon' on the 24th on February 2024.
A bit more about our Charities:
Floating Doctors
- Floating Doctors is a nonprofit charity based on an Island off the coast of Panama. The volunteers on base travel via boat to many small islands which have no other access to healthcare. The team runs clinics that deal with acute illness and injury as well as providing management of chronic conditions. They also run educational workshops for local people, provide dental and veterinary services.
You can read more about Floating doctors here: https://floatingdoctors.com/
Health and Help
- Health and Help is a nonprofit charity which runs two rural health clinics. One in Nicaragua and one in Guatemala. They provide accessible healthcare in regions otherwise cut off from the rest of the country. They run clinics, pay house visits, provide emergency care and if necessary transfer to bigger centres.
You can read more about Health and Help here: https://he-he.org/
Where exactly will my donation go?
The money that we both raise from our Fundraising campaign will be going directly to our two Charities. It will go toward things such as medications, medical supplies, running costs of the clinics, fuel for the floating doctors boats and emergency patient transport. Both clinics provide basic meals and accommodation on base in bunk rooms for their volunteer teams, so our funds will also contribute towards this.
All personal costs such as flights, travel, kit and just about everything else will be paid for by us individually and kept separate from this campaign.
The Marathon!
To help with our fundraising efforts we have signed up to complete EnduranceLife's Northumberland Trail Marathon in Februrary, 27.7 miles (not sure what happened to 26.2...) along the Northumberland coast through dunes and rivers, along beaches, past castles and directly into the north wind.....slightly terrifying. Although this will be a huge personal challenge for both of us we hope that we will complete the distance, raise some money for our charities and possibly enjoy the process!
If you want to check out the route you can follow this link: https://www.endurancelife.com/northumberland
I would be so grateful for any donations, we will keep you all updated on our training journey and when in April we set off on our trip we will be sure to show how your donations have helped to provide healthcare in both Panama and Nicaragua.
If you own, are a part of or know someone who may like to sponsor us as a business please get in touch. If businesses would like to donate to fulfil charity criteria we can work alongside them and write a piece about how their donation has helped our charities provide necessary healthcare.
Fundraising page for Molly O'Shea, Imogen Peterson will have a separate page.
All photos are shared with permission.
Organizer
Molly O'Shea
Organizer