Reflections on my volunteering in India with Rama Foundation in April 2019

Helaina (far right) distributing books and pencils to children from disadvantaged backgrounds attending government school number 8. These materials were kindly donated by her family and friends in the UK.

Helaina (far right) distributing books and pencils to children from disadvantaged backgrounds attending government school number 8. These materials were kindly donated by her family and friends in the UK.

By Helaina Jackson, Specialist Dietitian, Cambridge University Hopsitals NHS Foundation Trust

It has been two weeks since I returned from India, yet only now am I beginning to process and reflect on what we achieved and the work that still lies ahead. Looking back is almost surreal. It was a challenging, fun, life-changing and hugely eye-opening adventure. In some ways, I am frustrated and want to return and continue the important work that we started.

My brief time in India has taught me to adopt a more positive mindset because my problems are small. I now see how fortunate I am. I have reflected on how we deliver our services to patients and how high the standard of care that we provide is. This reflection is tinged with guilt that I cannot offer this level of care to those who need it in India. Another lesson was how important education and training is and how that can make such a massive difference to patient outcomes. An example of this is jaw stretching exercises for a patient undergoing head and neck radiotherapy to stop reduced jaw opening which was a problem that we frequently encountered during our trip. By educating care providers and patients, a significant difference can be made, quickly and with little cost.

Volunteering for the Rama Foundation has provided me with such an incredible opportunity to see how a different part of the world lives, the challenges they face and the things that they value. Many people that I visited had a lack of clean water supply, struggled to feed themselves and their families and were unable to afford cancer treatment. There was also outdated, and inadequate facilities and infrastructure in schools as 90% of government funding is allocated to low staff salaries. I was exposed to such a different way of life and witnessed genuine problems faced by ordinary people. These are problems that simply don’t exist in our Western world and it showed me how much I take for granted.

It was such a meaningful experience to be able to meet and spend time with patients, school children and local people during this time. I am genuinely grateful for the support and encouragement I received from my colleagues Artika, Claire and Tanzil, friends, family donators, the Rama foundation and CUH global Health Partnerships. We hope to continue to keep this momentum up. The first stage is writing reports and feeding back via presentations. We also want to look at developing Skype clinics for training and patient support purposes.

Thank you for providing me with an experience I will never forget.

Watch this space.