The DAK Foundation 1

The DAK Foundation with Dave and Kerry Rickards
The DAK Foundation is involved in a huge number of projects throughout the third world.
The DAK Foundation is a Private Ancillary Fund founded by Dave and Kerry Rickards in 2010. It's areas of work are Eyesight Restoration, Women's Health and  Essential Medical Equipment.
Dave reports that in  our travels we had learned that “high volume cataract surgery” is a remarkably cost effective health intervention. We set eye restoration surgery as a key priority for DAK when we incorporated in 2010.
 

The countries in which we are currently supporting eye surgeries are:

           Bangladesh           Cambodia           Ethiopia           India           Myanmar           Nepal

 

1. Birth Injury Repair

Childbirth injury is largely neglected, despite the devastating impact it has on the lives of affected girls and women who live with fistula or prolapse.We work with Impact Foundation Bangladesh providing training to 16 doctors in  appropriate prolapse management – both surgical and conservative. We also work with other partners in Nepal and intend to work collaboratively with government hospitals to roll out further training. In addition, we also work in Uganda, Tanzania and Malawi to provide free access to fistula and prolapse surgery treatment.

 Family Planning

 Enabling women to make informed decisions about whether and when to have children reduces unintended pregnancies as well as maternal and newborn deaths. It also increases educational and economic opportunities for women and leads to healthier families and communities. We have worked with  Marie Stopes and Spacim Pikinini in PNG to provide insertion of a 4 year sub dermal contraceptive implant to women who are keen to plan their families, in the post-natal wards of two general hospitals and on several islands of PNG. We also support implants in Kenya, Uganda and Congo.
 

Essential Medical Equipment

We provide a small range of basic health technology suitable for resource limited settings in developing countries.

The key technologies are portable ultrasounds, vital signs monitors and simple ECG machines. There are 10-12 items in the total range. Each item is life-saving, when put in the right hands at the right time.

  • We source new, compact and robust basic medical equipment that uses little or no consumables.
  • We choose equipment that is user friendly and uses rechargeable batteries where possible.
  • We include additional spare accessories where possible.
  • We purchase equipment in bulk at discounted prices direct from the factory. This limits the total range of equipment, but allows us to support networks of a higher scale.

The program:

  • We establish in-country partnerships with health networks, building regional knowledge to work with (and avoid duplication) of equipment and training programs from other NGOs.
  • We assess candidates using baseline surveys and conduct on-site assessments with local partners wherever possible to ensure that the equipment is needed, can be used by trained medical staff and will have impact in the local community.
  • We consolidate and send the ‘core’ range of equipment from our Sydney office and supply paperwork and support for shipping and transport to our partners.
  • We seek out local training programs and encourage connections with local, professional support networks, to achieve best possible patient outcomes.

On occasion, we have supported specialized equipment in country-specific programs.  Oxygen and anaesthesia are two such areas.For the last ten years, the DAK Foundation has partnered with RAWCS for this program.

Other than the Eye Surgery program all other activities involve and are auspiced by RAWCS.In 2019 DAK assisted 65,000 Eye surgeries in 6 countries. Covid response has closed downall of those programs for now.
This has released funds for response to the humanitarian crises caused by Covid lockdown.As an example DAK is involved in a food and cash distribution project in the Mukuru slum of Nairobi, Kenya – estimated population – 700,000. People in the slum live hand to mouth.
No work, no money, no food. People are starving. Access to essential drugs, medical services and birthing facilities have been disrupted. Mortality and morbidity from the response toCovid far outnumbers actual Covid impact.At present DAK is working with an organisation that is distributing 25 tonnes of food a day across 33,000 families on the edge of disaster. The mega NGO - “Give Directly”- is
providing cash ($45 pm per family) to 7,200 families for 3 months – And DAK has agreed to  continue cash donations after the 3 months for those families threatened with starvation.Mukuru is one of many slums around the world. Refugee camps are in an even more
precarious position. DAK’s help will be a mere drop in the bucket.