In 2017 Dr Emily Farkas led a medical mission to Enugu in Nigeria. She performed urgent heart surgery to 5 patients who would not otherwise have received this heart surgery, in a country of 86 million people but not a single heart surgeon.

This inspired the team from James Cook University Hospital Led by Dr Enoch Akowuah to organise a medical mission to Ghana. Dr Akowuah who is one of our own heart surgeons at James Cook has family in Kumasi in Ghana and thus this was the perfect link up for us.

There is currently no regular heart surgery in this city of 2 million people and we want to forge a long term link with this hospital.

We have been so touched by the generosity of so many people in making our first mission a reality and this will set off on the 23rd of March 2019. But we want to make this a regular link up and hopefully one day we dream of the day when this hospital can perform heart surgery independently.

If you feel able to contribute to our fundraising efforts for our second Mission to Ghana we would be most grateful and we can assure you that it will make a huge difference to the people who we can reach.

EVENTS WE ARE HOLDING

3 PEAKS CHALLENGE

Hazel Speck, Becky, Jemma, Josie, and Laura are all taking on the 3 peaks challenge in aid of our mission ! The walk is approximately 25 miles in length with an elevation gain of over 1000m. Starting and finishing at Horton in Ribblesdale. They will aim to complete this challenging trip in 12 hours.

If you are donating in order to support this amazing effort please mention it in your donation so we can encourage them in their mammoth effort ! Well done girls !

SPECIAL THANKS

We would like to send a special message of thanks to the friends and Family of Barbara. She was a much loved lady who passed away while being cared for by our community this week. We will keep her memory alive as we go to Ghana this October and we are grateful for the donations in her memory that will go towards our heart surgery mission this year.

Of note we are part of the South Cleveland Heart Fund which is a registered charity.

See the story that inspired us to start mission work to Africa

see our story on the James Cook Website

See our story on the BBC

See the whole series of mission videos of our trip in February here