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Friday March 7, 2008

Tikkun olam in the tropics

Seventh-graders undertake mitzvah project to Philippines

by stacey palevsky
staff writer

Mikaela Maron came home from her friend Dana Conley’s house and made the following announcement to her mother, Susana: “I’m going to the Philippines.”

Susana’s first reaction: “Oh no, you’re not.” After all, Mikaela was only 12, which meant she had to study for her bat mitzvah, and she certainly couldn’t miss school to fly to another hemisphere.

But Mikaela was persistent. She and Dana — best friends since JCC preschool — absolutely could not imagine seventh grade without this trip, which the girls had learned about from Dana’s father, Michael. And they had to do a mitzvah project for Lafayette’s Temple Isaiah anyway — why not dream big?

After a week of pleading, Susana agreed.

This was no island holiday. Mikaela and Dana would be going on a surgical mission to the Philippines to assist doctors, nurses and surgeons volunteering with the Vallejo-based Traditional Healing Ways, a nonprofit started by an East Bay nurse.

The girls crafted letters about their February trip and mailed them to everyone they knew, explaining that they needed help raising money for medical equipment and collecting donations of clothing and school supplies.

They split those tasks. Mikaela raised $850 and collected 750 pounds of donated items. Dana raised $2,700 for medical supplies.

“I’d like to chalk up their success to youthful idealism, but I think this is really their core character,” said Richard Gutierrez, director and founder of Traditional Healing Ways, who never expected the tween volunteers to take their task so seriously.

“They totally amazed me,” he added. “I wish more children — not just children, but adults too — could be as community-minded and thoughtful.”

Mikaela’s mom, dad (who is an emergency room physician), older sister and younger brother came along on the trip, as did Michael Conley, who works for a hospital staffing agency in Lafayette.

“I consider the trip priceless,” Conley said. “My goal was to give [Dana] a present she will carry with her throughout her life. I wanted her to find joy in helping other people, and she did.”

The medical team included two surgeons, one anesthesiologist, four physicians and four nurses. Their work took them to Daet, a coastal city of 80,000. Though the city center is somewhat urban, five minutes outside of town the terrain quickly turns rural and hardscrabble. Rice paddies cover the ground and coconut trees dot the skyline. Most families live in shacks with corrugated tin roofs; a lunch counter might charge 50 cents for a meal.

The mission volunteers arrived in Daet in the middle of a hot, humid day. Four hundred people were waiting in a gymnasium that would be converted into a triage center. Dana and Mikaela pulled their long, straight hair into ponytails, donned scrubs and were immediately put to work sorting and labeling syringes, bandages and medicine.

“This was definitely not a vacation — this was work,” Dana said.

The medical team conducted 250 surgeries, repairing children’s cleft lips and palates and removing goiters and cysts. They also administered vaccines and

lectured to local medical students.

The girls focused most of their time and energy on community outreach. They passed out stuffed animals and ice cream to children awaiting surgery. They visited six schools and brought food and books to more than 1,400 students.

At one point “we ran out of money, so we hit up all the doctors for more money so we could buy more food and go back and feed students at the school,” Mikaela said.

Gutierrez, director of the mission, was elated that the girls took such initiative. He had always wanted to pair community outreach with health services but never had the manpower to get the project off the ground.

The girls smile widely at the memory of their trip. They said they were most impressed by how appreciative the Filipino children were for even the tiniest gesture, squealing in delight and gratitude over a lollipop.

The parents admit the trip was costly, mostly because of airfare and for the extra money directed to the mission itself. But it was certainly worthwhile, Conley said. He recalled one incident in particular that he thought showed Dana and Mikaela just how far a dollar and good deed can go.

Near the end of the mission, a doctor asked Conley if he had $250. “What for?” he asked. The doctor explained he had just diagnosed a baby with sepsis, a bacterial infection that is fatal unless treated with antibiotics. The baby’s parents, however, did not have $250 (“Nobody there has $250,” Dana interjected), so the young couple checked out of the clinic and took their baby home to die. Conley gave the doctor money for treatment, no questions asked.

“A lot of credit needs to go to these two families for how they took the Jewish values their kids are learning and applied them in concrete ways,” said Rabbi Judy Shanks, who helped coordinate the seventh-grade mitzvah project at Temple Isaiah. “Sure, they have the wherewithal, but not everyone who does would follow through and make this a priority.”

Dana celebrates her bat mitzvah Saturday, March 8; Mikaela has hers March 29. The trip to the Philippines complemented their studies, they said. They worked with Shanks to draw parallels between their Torah portion and what they saw and learned overseas, lessons that will be the centerpiece of their divrei Torah.

“This trip has changed me a lot,” Mikaela said. “It changed the way I look at everybody, the way I act.”

The girls plan to return to Daet for another medical mission in 2010. Dana got a dreamy look on her face when she imagines what she can accomplish between now and then.

“We’ll have two years — not three months,” she said. “Next time, we’ll be more prepared.” And just as enthusiastic.

Traditional Healing Ways will return to the Philippines in two years. The mission needs money, medical supplies and clothing. To find out how you can help, contact Richard Gutierrez at icysanrn@aol.com.

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