Backpacker Medics

From the very start we worked closely with the Moonlight Foundation Nepal to enable the work we do. The Moonlight Foundation Nepal (MFN) was founded in 2008 and is a non-profit, non-political, service-oriented social organization which runs a free school for disadvantaged children in Kathmandu that now has over 80 students in full-time study up to Grade 6. MFN is registered with the District Administration office, the District Development committee and the Social Welfare Council in Kathmandu, Nepal.

Since the opening of the Moonlight Community Healthcare Centre (MCHC) in 2012, however, our relationship with MFN has become less formalized as we now work directly with the Shree Mahadevsthan Samaj Sawa Okhaldunga (SMSO), which is the steering committee of the MCHC. SMSO was founded in 2012 and is registered with the District Administration Office (Reg#: 479).

The SMSO is made up of 11 Committee members and is responsible for the smooth operations and daily management of the MCHC and other, ongoing social welfare projects in the community. SMSO is completely non-profit and has no political affiliations. SMSO takes project direction from Backpacker Medics and also provides quarterly operational and financial reporting.

The ‘theory’ behind our working relationship with the SMSO is to provide a model that puts complete ‘control’ for the day-to-day operations and future of the MCHC in the hands of the community. This is a powerful concept that has proven – thus far – to work extremely well.

We orchestrated the establishment of the Moonlight Community Healthcare Center (MCHC)– a free health center for Kerasawara village and the surrounding community.

Kerasawara is a remote, agriculture-based village, that currently has no school or health post and is at least 6 hours from any form of real healthcare. In this setting villagers are regularly afflicted (sometimes fatally), by entirely treatable diseases such as common influenza, maternity complications, typhoid fever, gastrointestinal disorders and skin infections.

• To provide medical aid in areas of the world that do not otherwise have the capability to mobilise aid in remote regions. Including (but not limited to), mountainous, arduous and potentially dangerous terrain.

  Following the devastating earthquake that hit Nepal in 2015, the core members of BPM who made up the Earthquake Relief Team decided that (as an organisation) we needed to be better prepared for future disasters both in Nepal and around the globe.

  And so, the BPM Disaster Response Group was established.

  The BPM Disaster Response Group is comprised of a select group of highly-trained individuals- all with previous BPM volunteer experience and extensive clinical, travel and operational backgrounds. It is a rotating, dynamic and fluid team of personell who maintain a readiness for deployment at all times.

  The Mission of the BPM Disaster Response Group is:

  To provide post-disaster medical care to remote regions of the world in a timely and self-sustainable fashion.

  The AIMS of the BPM Disaster Response Group are: