29 March 2008: She remains ill, although she has spoken a few words. But she is still bleeding from the ear for which treatment is being sought. 

27 March 2008:  Sad news! A 5 year old refugee (a pupil who also attends our free school) was hit by a jeep - this happened in her own private time as she was walking along the road. We have taken her to the hospital as her family cannot afford full treatment. Her own father is dead but she has a step-father and mother. We are waiting to find out what the hospital doctors’ have to say. At present, her situation remains complicated. { Our FREE school, which is funded by donations, helps educate refugee children. They receive free lunch, uniform, and schooling, all for FREE.}

We are planning to run a free eye camp in May/June to provide treatment to many eye poor patients and refugees, and also perform eye surgery if needed. This will take place near the Burmese border in Bangladesh, in Cox’s Bazaar sea-beach resort. Our initial research indicates we should be able to do this for about £29 ($58) per patient who are in need of surgery. This is something we are working on in depth as it involves the help of specialist eye surgeons and doctors, the use of a surgical ward and hospital.

The patients will undergo screening, and those that need medicines will be provided this. Those referred for surgery (cataracts etc) will then be admitted to the clinic. We will provide many of them with travel costs as they are too poor to even afford that. They will undergo surgery by government approved surgeons, and then have a 2 day stay at the clinic. We will feed them over these two days and supply them with a months medication as minimum. All this will be FREE to the patients.

Our limiting factor is the amount we can raise - the more we can collect, the more patients we can see. Even if 10 people receive free cataract surgery, it will make a big difference to them. Otherwise, they will carry on living with poor eye-sight because they are too poor to do anything about it. If you can help us with any of our project costs, please come forward You don’t need to donate all of the money, even part donations will help and will add up. Thanks in advance.

A new web forum to tackle poverty has been added today: www.MercyMankind.org/forum/

We are planning to increase the current number of refugee pupils from 30 to 60. New premises have been arranged which can educate upto 120 pupils in two batches. We propose increasing the number initially to 60 pupils in a couple of months time.

Refugee children of Burmese origin will benefit from this free education. On a side-note, we are installing 3 ceiling fans at our school because it is now quite warm in Bangladesh - this will bring comfort to the pupils and staff.