Hello dear potential funders!

Short description of the project (the longer one follows below)
This project is about gathering donations to support Dr. Kodio's work in Mali, assisting the Dogon people of the Bandiagara Escarpement (please check the facebook link for more background information).

Dr. Kodio will be in Mali for approximately 30 days doing field research for his PhD. Whilst there he will make available his medical know how (being a trained doctor) to the local population. In addition, given the outbreak of Ebola in the region (lucklily Mali is not affected so far), Dr. Kodio will be training the population on basic hygene measures that can reduce dramatically the risk of contagion.

Our donations will go towards buying medecine for the Dogon people, that otherwise Dr. Kodio would not be in a position to afford. An average cure would cost 2-3 euros in medicine, more serious treatment can cost up to 50-60 euros. As an example, it takes less than 2 euros in medicine to save a young boy or girl from blindness!

All donations will be most gratefully received - everything helps.
Last time with a total of ca. 1,700.00 euros, Dr Kodio was able to treat ca. 300 patients in 23 remote villages of Mali.

In case you want to get in touch directly: ogokodio@yahoo.fr

Thank you all for your attention and any donation you may want to make to this project.

Contributors will receive a report summarising Doctor Kodio's activities on site that were made possible by our donations.

Long description of the project
The best way to describe what the project is about, is by sharing the account of Dr. Kodio's trip in Mali on February 2014.
As a reminder, all donations go towards buying medicine for the people of Dogon and contributing to the gas purchases for Doctor Kodio's motorbike - which allows him to travel across the Bandiagara Escarpment.

This project would be the third time we support Doctor Ogobara Kodio in his fieldwork in Mali.

During the previous trip, we managed to raise 1.720,00 Euros.
This money allowed to treat ca. 300 sick people, mostly farmers and their families that live far away from any form of medical infrastructure. In most cases these people cure themselves with traditional medicine; unfortunately this type of medicine is often ineffective - e.g. malaria and infections represent ca. 80% of the diseases, and traditional medicine in Mali can nothing / little against these.

Many of these farmers had never been visited by a Doctor trained with western standards (such as Doctor Kodio who studied both in Mali and in Rome).

Doctor Kodio's intervention always follows an explicit request from the sick people, their parents (in case of young kids) and the local healers. Doctor Kodio does not want to bypass local healers, but rather build trust such that when he leaves, local healers can help diagnose the diseases and suggest appropriate ways to address them (via traditional medicine or western medicine). This way, traditional healers do not feel threatened by western medicine, keep their status within their communities and become active and valuable medical agents on site.

Doctor Kodio first undertakes a visit of the patient in order to make a diagnosis of the disease. Subsequently, to those who can afford the medicine, he will suggest the right treatment; to the others, where possible, he will provide the medical cure on site - this is where our money goes!

Thanks to the drugs that were funded in his last trip, Doctor Kodio cured 10-15 people in each of the villages he visited during his fieldwork, for a total of circa 300 sick people. The most common diseases that he cured were: malaria, typhus fever, diarrhea, breathing infections, pathologies connected to under nourishment, eye infections.

For patients without severe / chronic disease the cost to cure is equal to ca. 2-3 euros.
For patients with severe disease the cost can go up to 60 euros.