With more than $12,000 in the earthquake relief fund for Nepal, the UNMC/Nebraska Medicine Nepal Relief Effort Committee is exploring options on how to best use the money.
Ward Chambers, M.D., coordinator of the committee, said $5,000 will likely be earmarked to go toward day camps established to provide medical care in villages devastated by the earthquake.
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Nearly 90 people have made donations to the UNMC Nepal Disaster Relief Fund set up at the University of Nebraska Foundation. Click here to make a donation. If you have questions about the fund, contact Karen Levin of the University of Nebraska Foundation at 402-502-4921.
“One thing we want to do is visit with Dr. Poonam Joshi (who returned from Nepal on Monday),” Dr. Chambers said. “We have added her to our committee, and we will pick her brain and try to figure how our funds can be used in the most meaningful way.”
A native of Nepal, Dr. Joshi left for Nepal four days after the earthquake struck on April 25. She works in the UNMC Department of Pharmacology/Experimental Neuroscience. Her experience in Nepal was detailed last week in a story in UNMC Today.
One thing being considered, Dr. Chambers said, is to use the money to help build permanent housing for families who have been displaced by the earthquake, which ranks as the ninth deadliest earthquake in the world in the past 20 years with more than 8,500 people killed.
“Nepal has developed permanent housing that can be built for just $400. Our goal is to raise a minimum of $10,000 in new funding to go toward housing. In essence, you could build 25 houses for $10,000,” he said. “That’s a lot of bang for the buck.”
Dr. Chambers said the committee will meet again on Friday to discuss options in more detail.
