Sun | May 19, 2024

OID heads to Africa for next leg of mission

- Mobile mammogram unit van nears reality

Published:Tuesday | May 7, 2024 | 12:08 AMAubrey Campbell/Gleaner Writer
TWO THANK YOUs. Honourees Dr Sunil Stephenson (left), UWI Mona, for humanitarian service, and Normadelle Rose, manager, RJRGLEANER, NA, for community service; display their tokens presented at the OID Spring Luncheon Fundraiser at the Greentree Country Clu
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TWO THANK YOUs. Honourees Dr Sunil Stephenson (left), UWI Mona, for humanitarian service, and Normadelle Rose, manager, RJRGLEANER, NA, for community service; display their tokens presented at the OID Spring Luncheon Fundraiser at the Greentree Country Club, New Rochelle, NY, on Sunday, April 21.

NEW YORK, NY:

The Organization for International Development (OID) will travel to continental Africa next month for its second ‘Mission of Mercy 2024’. The charitable unit of healthcare professionals and volunteers will visit Zambia, in southern Africa, from June 14 – 28, providing healthcare services in ophthalmology and dentistry in a major collaboration with the Nursing School, University of Rusangu.

The trip comes exactly six months after the first mission in January, which took the team to the parishes of St Thomas and Trelawny, Jamaica, where some 1,400 patients with varying degrees of medical and dental challenges were seen and treated by the medics.

At the organisation’s annual Spring Luncheon Fundraiser at the Greentree Country Club, New Rochelle, NY, on April 21, President Michelle James thanked the scores of contributors and volunteers for their more than three decades of unswerving support that has ensured the enviable levels of sustainability for the projects and programmes in communities in Jamaica, the Caribbean region, and beyond.

She acknowledged the 2024 Class of Honorees - Normadelle Rose – Community Service Award; Dr Sunil Stephenson – Humanitarian Service Award; Cordella Bonnick Cautheri – Volunteer Service Award; and Dr Daniel Goldstein – Humanitarian Service Award - for their many years of outstanding, inspiring and dedicated service to the OID’s mission, started in 1990 in the Bronx, NY, by Roy Streete, a decorated career dental surgeon.

The highlight of the seasonal luncheon fundraiser was the presentation of a cheque in the amount of US$70,000 by Sabrina HoSang Jordan, CEO of Caribbean Food Delight/Royal Caribbean Bakery and chair of the Vincent HoSang Family Foundation, towards the purchase of a mobile mammogram unit – ‘MammoVan’ – at a cost of US$300,000.

The contribution pushed the OID’s total collected so far to just past the halfway mark. When operational, the programme will offer breast cancer screening service to Jamaicans in many underserved communities.

Additionally, funds for one of the six OID-administered scholarships, in the amount of US$1,600, named in honour of OID member Denise McLaughlin, was presented to Norma Jarrett, president of the Ole Farmers Association/USA-NE and tenable at the College of Agriculture, Science and Education, Jamaica.