"Safeguarding People"
The Kakumbi Clinic

Situated on the edge of Zambia's South Luangwa National Park is Kakumbi Clinic. In the Western world, a "clinic" conjures up images of a multi-storied hospital with state-of-the art equipment, computers, an emergency room, surgery theaters, laboratories, and a large staff of nurses and doctors. In wealthier Western countries, we take for granted getting the best emergency and long-term care wherever we travel.

At Zambia's Kakumbi Clinic it's a little different. It's about the size of a fast-food restaurant with only two rooms, no running water, no x-ray equipment, and no lab equipment. Its "pharmaceutical department" consists of one cabinet with a few bottles of aspirins. Its "orthopedic department" consists of a few crutches stashed in a corner. The "surgery theater" is one bed where the generator-produced electricity sometimes works.

When I first visited the Kakumbi Clinic eighteen months ago, I was amazed at the Herculean tasks the volunteer European doctor faces every day. Each morning the scene was the same: long lines of African men, women, and children waiting outside the clinic door. Their ailments were the usual found in Africa: malaria, dysentery, septic wounds, toothache, conjunctivitis, infections, and a litany of tropical diseases. The doctor tried to attend to the most serious cases first.

As I followed the doctor around inside the clinic, I was appalled at the lack of medicines, and basic equipment. I was shocked to see that women had to carry the water in by buckets. I was stunned when I saw a clinic so poor that there were volunteers re-washing the surgical gloves! The brave doctor somehow worked miracles inside the clinic - basically lancing septic wounds. I marveled that these wonderful, gentle people still found a way to smile as they endured pain - there is no anesthesia -- without complaint. I had a lump in my throat the size of the water bucket.

It was then and there that I decided to make the Kakumbi Clinic an Elefence Project. How can the world expect such impoverished people to become stewards of wildlife - when they can barely be stewards of their own people? The first to step forward to help were the parishioners of St. Anne's Anglican Church (Madison, Ohio). Their generous Outreach Program donations made it possible for me to lead nurses from Kent State University's College of Nursing to assess the Kakumbi Clinic as a long term health project. As this partnership develops, the hopes and dreams of the poor people of Kakumbi will come true. They will have excellent and ongoing health care through the years.

THEN, we can help make the Kakumbi people stewards of the wonderful wildlife of South Luangwa National Park. This project will continue to fulfill Elefence's mission to "Safeguard People …as well as Wildlife."

We desperately need to help Kakumbi Clinic now with medicines, equipment, and fresh water. Please contact us if you are interested in truly making a difference directly to these impoverished people.

Dick Houston President and Founder Elefence International