AMEN Australia 2019 Conference: Witnesses Unto Me

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Adventist Medical Evangelism Network Australia

Pam Townend

10,000 Toes Report


10, 000 toes. It's a great privilege to be here to give you an update. I think Chester was here last year sharing. As the winds prevented me from arriving this time last year, I enjoyed the trip by train to the airport and then got sent home. But it's all about turning the tide on diabetes, because we are in a world that is just sick.

In the South Pacific, this is my boss, Dr Chester Kumar. He couldn't be here today because he's heading home to the Solomons because on Wednesday a very exciting event is happening. We're signing a memorandum of understanding with the government in regard to this very campaign. We've been working towards this, thank you, for 2 years now, and we actually, our plan, our big goal was that if we could achieve this at the end of 5 years, we'd do cartwheels. But here we are on Wednesday reaching 1 of our major goals to get the Solomon Islands on board.

That is going to just help us terrifically with finances and also human resources. But the pandemic is sweeping across the Pacific. Here are some statistics that relate just to amputations. Diabetes affects far more than toes, but 30, 000 amputations per year compared to 1, 300 here in Australia. Now, I am sure that all of you know somebody who's got diabetes.

I personally have. My dad is a diabetic. My mother passed away with Alzheimer's due to diabetes. My grandmother, I never knew because she died of diabetes before I was born and all my dad's side of the family is diabetic. So far I am the first generation to put a stop to that.

My children have been in studies because they want to try and understand that hereditary principles, but they're not diabetic yet either. And now I have 3 grandsons and I Praise God that we are breaking in our family that cycle that keeps getting handed down. I grew up with the concept that because my dad was diabetic and my grandmother has died and my grandpa had diabetes that I would become a diabetic. That plays in your mind. You know, as a 13-year-old, when I went down to Tasmania on a holiday, we went to Cadbury's, a great place to get diabetes, and we tasted all these chocolates.

And I got to the end, and my brother, who is 2 years older, said to me, why don't you get on the scales sis because I reckon you weigh more than I do. And I thought, how rude. So I jumped on the scales and I did weigh more than he did, and I was 10 and a half stone as a 13 year old. I was heading for diabetes. I vowed and declared from that moment, probably because of sisterly sibling rivalry, that I was going to do something about that.

And from that point on I started changing my life, which is quite remarkable for a 13-year-old. But now as I am older, I look back and go, wow, things could have been so much different if I'd kept on that path. Who knows where I might be today. But it used to be leprosy. Now it's diabetes.

Now Dr. Kumar is a surgeon. These are some of his photos when he used to do a practice. Daily, he said he was always chopping off limbs to save people's lives. He's glad now that he's on the other end.

You would have seen Talita in that video. She was the young girl that's taken on looking after her siblings because mum's blind and she also has a toe amputated so it makes getting around very difficult. 10, 000 toes has been able to send her back to school this year and she is pursuing a university studies in the years to come. And we're excited, although it doesn't affect her, the diabetes, but it's enabling her to get out of that continual spiral of leading into diabetes in the next generation. We have 3 strategies.

It's to provide equipment and tools. This is the bag that we provide with the blood pressure machines and diabetes glucometers and all the rest. Our aim for this year, so it's a campaign within the campaign, was to raise enough funds to purchase 2, 000 screening kits. So as of the 1st of December, we are just 37 kits away from achieving that goal. So I'm sure that as we come up to the lead into Christmas that we'll be able to reach that goal.

How much does a kit cost? $100. Sorry, Andrew. Yes, $100. So, $3, 700 that represents.

So this is in Fiji. They've been trained, these folk, and they have their bags and they go around the villages doing tests. This is what some of the locals are doing. This is in PNG where we're doing expos. Strategy 2 is about training and resourcing the coaches so we do CHIP and CHIP and live more abundantly.

Now the live more abundantly is an equatorial version of CHIP, It was rolled out in Fiji this year and is about to be rolled out in the Solomon Islands in the year to come. Now I love these kind of reports where it says, we need the 7 Day Venice Church and its health message. All doctors in the Solomon Islands must become CHIP facilitators. Isn't that exciting? Not just by anybody.

I mean, this guy is the medical superintendent. The government must leverage support from churches, particularly the Seventh-day Adventist Church. And so that's why Wednesday is an exciting time for us to know that they're actually following through with what they were saying. And finally, strategy 3 is to support the training and upskilling of the health professions through the Society of Lifestyle Medicine, which we are sponsoring. And that happens next year in Fiji, in March.

So who's going on a holiday? Who wants to go and support the South Pacific Society, headed up by Dr Paul Wood? This is going to be a great launch. We're very excited and from there we hope to have chapters that will come out of that in the other countries. We had a dream of having 10, 000 toes regular.

Then we're going to go to the Power Up next year and then Power Up Plus. But we have been in the Power Up stage for the last 12 months because the island people are just wanting to jump on board and it's very exciting. And we are partnering with ADRA in this space, which is exciting also. I'm going to skip this just because of time. This year we had a group that walked the Kokoda track.

The first time a group of leaders from our church did that and it was amazing. I didn't do the whole walk but I did do the last little hill they told me. It was like a mountain for me, but they said that was nothing. We discovered that along the Kokoda, diabetes is not a major problem and that's because it's so remote, but they're now selling soft drink and chips to all the people like us that go over there and walk the track. So it won't be long and they will be facing the same issues.

And so we left them, I say we, I wasn't there, But I gave them kits to take and they have left kits along the clinics along the way to try and keep in front of this. If you're wanting to do the Kokoda, ADRA is doing it again in 2020. So come and see myself or Steve Pollock who is here representing ADRA. So far, as of the middle of November, as a total fundraising event, we have raised actually, it says 448, but I did the sums again yesterday and we are now up to $461, 000. So we are almost at the half a million.

What this does not represent is that we got a part of the 13 quarter world sabbath school offering last quarter. The funds haven't arrived, we don't know what that's worth, but I've got my fingers crossed that we might get around a quarter of a million dollars or more for that. So we'll be able to keep impacting in a mighty way. We've got great plans. We want to hit the islands, keep hitting them.

There's so many countries. But I just wanna quickly, my time is up. Is Steve, come and join me. ADRA is a big part of the 10, 000 Tows. They allow us tax deductibility, they're helping us work through also with the Live More Abundantly program, but ADRA is far more than just 10, 000 toes, although that's the most important part, I will say.

So Steve, I'll just let you have just a quick introduce yourself. So hi, I'm Steve Pollack, I'm the Relationships Manager for ADRA. And how long have I got? 27 seconds? Or 30?

Okay, try and say something sensible. What I generally do when I talk with people is I try to put myself in where you're sitting rather than where I'm sitting. And if I was there, I'd be thinking, ah, Adra, charity. Yeah, this guy probably wants something from us and it's probably money. We're probably perennially guilty of that, but I'd rather approach it from another point of view.

Yes, we are the partner. We're 10, 000 toes and it's something that we stand behind and we're really, really doing our very best. We're even trying to get you some free swipes, aren't we? It's being offered from a charity that supplies medical supplies. It's actually about 5% of what ADRA does.

But If I was sitting there, I'd like to know why ADRA does this thing. Why do we exist? I mean, in actual fact, Pam could have partnered with another charity, you might think. Well, of course they'd partner with ADRA, but it's not obligatory. So I come to the point of saying to you that who are we?

Well, in the first instance, we're really, really dedicated and efficient. Now, I'm looking at scientific people, they probably like facts, so we do have them to back them up. But if you look at with regard to our expenditure on what we do and what percentage of it, we're benchmarked against other charities in how we do it. I've got some figures there against 8 similar charities, except some are very large. We come up at 13% of our expenditures goes to admin and fundraising.

Some of the others go up to 30%. So a lot of the money gets to where you want it to go. Beyond that, who are we? Why are we doing this? Well, there's really only 1 reason.

We're a Christian faith-based charity. And that distinguishes us from secular charities. There's some very large, successful secular charities in Australia doing wonderful work. The reason I'm with ADRA is because I have so much faith in what ADRA does and the way we do it. I'm a donor myself, and after making provision for my family, I have left a gift for Adra in my will, which I know will be very, very important when that time comes.

Beyond that though, when I first joined I was at Queensland camp and a lady came up to me and she wanted to get 1 of our t-shirts, which we're always happy for. We like people wearing them. I'm sorry about the quality of the model wearing this 1, but after 68 years the body does suffer just a little bit. In fact, we have some over there which we'd like to give away. But what we'd ask you to do is just give us your details and sign up for our newsletter.

Now why would we do that? We'd probably like to send you information about what we do. But hopefully tomorrow we can announce some people are going to get some of these t-shirts and some caps and things. We're coming back to what we do and why we do it and what happens. There's another bonus with ADRA, which I really love.

And a lady came up to me and I'd only been with her about 6 months and she said, oh yeah, I was over on 1 of the connection trips and a little girl came up to us and we're just finishing off. We'd put in water, we'd addressed sanitation, we'd addressed some health issues, we had the water going to some crops and things are looking a lot better. A little girl came up to her and she said, well look, you know, a lot of people have come over here and they've said a lot of things to us and they were going to help us and they were going to promise this and that. I don't know who the people were, I wasn't there. But she said, you came, you said the same thing.

We were sick, we didn't have enough water, it was dirty, and we didn't have enough to eat. Now we do. Your God must be the true God. And this is the thing that I'm suggesting that ADRA offers to each and every 1 of you as you go about your philanthropic life, is the distinct possibility of something else happening, and we do our very best to ensure that that's happened that way. Thank you.

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