Hello! Thanks for visiting my page to learn more about what I am fundraising for.

This summer I will be returning to MY BEAUTIFUL HOMELAND (Bangladesh) with Selfless to complete a Global Health Leadership Project. This is an amazing charity run by a team of UK-based healthcare professionals with an urge to improve healthcare worldwide, particularly introducing sustainable healthcare initiatives in rural Bangladesh. The programme really interests me because I believe health is the most important thing in someone’s life and to be able to offer healthcare to anybody is a privilege. The skillanthropy Selfless have been offering for 11 years to Bangladesh’s poorest people vastly impresses me as a Bangladeshi who actively wants to improve the healthcare system in my own country, without really knowing how to. The aim is to educate and inspire like minded individuals, and together we can make a greatly positive impact which won’t just be a temporary fix, but instead have lasting effects.

As a dental student, I was already aware that oral diseases are the most common non-communicable diseases and affect half of the world’s population (3.58 billion people), hence why something as simple as teaching correct OHI to children can greatly reduce oral diseases. This is what I will be doing whilst participating in the project called ‘A Brush With Kindness’. It is a dental hygiene project where we go into rural primary schools to teach young kids the importance of brushing their teeth and how to effectively brush. We give them free biodegradable bamboo toothbrushes and toothpaste too.

Selfless aim to help in rural areas where healthcare is the poorest and the following projects will also be run:

Upahar: an antenatal care project that provides new mothers with a baby bundle that has everything you need for the first 8 days of life. In return we ask mothers to simply follow our antenatal care advice via SMS. The estimated lifetime risk of dying from pregnancy and childbirth in Bangladesh is 1 in 21. Nearly two thirds of mothers in Bangladesh do not receive antenatal care, so the aim is to provide them with as much as we can to help.

Porishkar: a cataract surgery service in rural villages that targets those who have become jobless due to their poor eyesight. We screen patients via an ambu-cycle and fund patients to have their procedure done in partner hospitals. Restoring their vision allows them to get back to work and support their families. 4.8 million Bengalis have moderate to severe vision impairment and there were only 6.3 ophthalmologists per million people in Bangladesh in 2014. Just £30 of a donation can carry out life-changing cataract surgery and restore someone’s vision!

I hope that you will be kind enough to donate or share my page with more people if you are unable to donate.

Thanks so much! - Mansiba (/Ishra) xoxox

The donations do not contribute to the costs of flights/food etc, by the way, that is self-funded!! If you would like to read more about Selfless: https://www.selfless.org.uk/skillanthropy/ghlp/#programmes