Overseas CIP Projects

Since 2015, Project Aasha has embarked on yearly trips to Nepal, improving the lives of the people by attending to their healthcare needs. Throughout the years, we have focussed on areas like menstrual health education, physiotherapy and interacting with the visually-impaired community.  

In December 2019, our LKC students teamed up with SIT physiotherapy students to conduct a first aid course and taught simple exercises to 60 visually impaired students from Dharan Blind School.  

Project Asada aims to promote healthcare conditions in Lamae, Chumphon (Southern Thailand). We work closely with Baan Eurphon Orphanage, a local non-profit organization that homes children in need, as our starting point in reaching out to the community of Lamae. Since embarking on our first trip in July 2019, Project Asada’s efforts have encompassed three main areas: health education, pediatric health screenings for the children of Baan Eurphon, as well as free health screenings for adult villagers in the community. 

For the children of Baan Eurphon, we introduced a health booklet system to track their development, and institutionalised a referral system with the local Lamae Hospital to bridge them to the local health system. As we continue to work on educating and screening the children to improve their health standards and health literacy, we also hope to impart a sustainable change on health literacy and health seeking behaviours in the Lamae community on a larger scale through our health screenings. We emphasize on building up and upon local healthcare resources through close collaboration with Lamae Hospital and its healthcare providers, hoping to achieve a sustained impact on the community. It is our hope that our efforts will improve the robustness and outreach of the local healthcare system, bridging the gap with our beneficiaries. We endeavour to fulfill our vision of creating a sustainable health service model that can be adopted by the local community.  

OCIP Chiang Mai is a newly established student-led programme that offers health screening services and health education in Phrao district in Chiang Mai, Thailand. In partnership with the Little Candles Methodist Church in Phrao, OCIP Chiang Mai seeks to address chronic diseases such as musculoskeletal issues, hypertension, and diabetes through medical consultations and patient education, with the long-term goal of helping those with chronic diseases adopt healthier lifestyle habits and manage their conditions in a sustainable manner. 

Apart from our medical work, we conducted health education lessons at Enfu Boarding House for youths from broken families or underprivileged backgrounds. They were actively engaged with interactive games and creative props, learning about hand hygiene, good dietary habits, as well as recognizing and dealing with depression. Our interactions with the young also extended to Little Candles Kindergarten, where we entertained the children with games and science demonstrations. 

OCIP Davao serves underprivileged communities in Davao City, Philippines alongside its partner NGO, Sowing the Master’s Seed Ministry. The team, compromising 17 students across the years and headed by A/Prof Eric Yap, embarked on the seventh of its bi-annual trips on 14-20 July 2019. The team reached out to the villages of Magtuod and Talaingod, conducting health screening and health education for the locals. The team also conducted engaging science and career lessons for Langub High School. 

At the villages, the team went door-to-door to conduct health education. Villagers were informed about prevalent medical conditions in the region, including hypertension, diabetes and hyperlipidemia. Visual methods and translated pamphlets were used to improve health literacy amongst the villagers. During the trip, students also collected data for OCIP Davao’s novel Geographic Information System. This system was set up in 2018 to create a virtual map of the rural villages to better follow-up with chronically ill villagers. Currently, most of the households in Magtuod have been mapped out and the team hopes to use the system to follow-up identified cases with more targeted health education and observe health trends over a longitudinal period. The team also conducted health screening at Magtuod. Stations included modalities such as height and weight, blood glucose, blood pressure, urinalysis and doctors’ consultations. Additionally, villagers found to have chronic diseases were highlighted for health education, and their data was logged into the OCIP’s database for long-term follow-up. 

Furthermore, an exciting breakthrough for OCIP Davao occurred when the team managed to visit the Magtuod health centre. The team hopes to continue building meaningful connections with the nurses for future collaborations, and establish sustainable self-management plans for the village. 

At Langub High School, the team prepared engaging lessons for students in the areas of science and career education. For Science education, students were taught about DNA replication and osmosis through a hands-on session. For Career education, students were exposed to many scenarios and team activities, where they learnt concepts of financial literacy and prudent money management. 

The July trip in 2019 was undoubtedly meaningful for OCIP Davao, and the team hopes to continue their work in serving the communities of Davao by creating sustainable impact. 

As of 2020, OCIP Davao continues to partner with Sowing the Master’s Seed Ministry, focusing on alleviating dire education needs during the current COVID-19 crisis. 

“Translating hope, empowering generations” – Project Daya was established in 2014 with the aim of sustainably increasing awareness of relevant health issues and empowering villagers in Batam, Indonesia. To ensure continuity and consistency in the work we do, we visit the same village every 3 months. Together with our Indonesian NGO, Peduli Bangsa, we are currently serving Kampung Air, a rural-to-urban transitional village. Our main approach to delivering health information is via door-to-door outreach. We focus mainly on chronic illnesses and smoking due to their high prevalence within the village. During outreach, we do our best to address the villagers’ concerns and follow up on any personal health issues surfaced from our previous trips. In order to assess the effectiveness of our teaching, we reassess the villagers who have been visited previously. The time that the villagers have offered us and their willingness to share their personal concerns with us have constantly touched our hearts and inspire us to do more. 

In addition to door-to-door outreach, we conduct a Children’s Programme occasionally in the village. We have covered topics such as Hygiene and Mosquito-borne diseases. 

Over the next year, we will be focusing more on re-visiting villagers whom we have met previously to see if there are any changes in their lifestyles and to strengthen our rapport with them. Through this, we also hope to identify villagers passionate about health and train them to be health champions who can advocate and promote health within their village in our absence. 

Project Isip is a collaborative service-learning project between LKCMedicine, TTSH PPEO and University of St La Salle (USLS) in Bacolod City, that mainly aims to help the rural villages of Bacolod. We cover a wide range of activities: from conducting health screening at the village to health education and health promotion.  

We aim to promote health awareness and health-seeking behaviours through relationship building and appreciation of the unique circumstances of the community, and ultimately, self-sufficiency by equipping local leaders with health screening skills. 

Our project allows close interaction with the students from College of Nursing and Medicine (USLS). During the last trip, we visited assigned households during the community attachment at Hda. Carmen, as well as conducted a basic health screening for the villagers at a rural health centre. Through working with the students and the communities, we learnt to appreciate the cultural nuances and habits of the villagers, while trying to integrate healthy practices into their lives. 

Project Kolkata is a student-led overseas community involvement project which serves former sex-trafficked women and their children in India. Human trafficking is a persistent national problem in India. Kolkata has consistently topped the list of states with the highest number of human trafficking cases. Most of the victims are women and children, transported through the state’s borders of Nepal and Bangladesh, to be recruited into the sex trade. This has culminated in Kolkata being identified as the world’s worst human trafficking zone. In fact, Asia’s largest red-light district, Sonagachi, is situated in Kolkata. 

It is this demographic that Project Kolkata is interested and focused on helping. The women who face stigmatisation, psychological trauma, loss of dignity from working in the sex industry, and a heightened risk of HIV/AIDS, STDs with their numerous complications. Their children who lack proper nutrition, education, healthcare, and in general a safe environment to grow up in. We partner with 3 NGOs – New Light India, Tollygunge Women in Need and TouchNature – to conduct health screenings and health education for the women and their children. 

Apart from healthcare issues, human trafficking is deeply intertwined with social and economic problems. While providing health screening and education, we are placed in a unique position to interact with women formerly from the sex trade and the social workers helping them. Through this, we learn more about the harsh truths of the sex trade and its lasting impact of individuals. Ultimately, we hope to broaden our perspective on the function of medicine in a vastly different context. ​ 

Partnering with YMCA Singapore, Project Kyannmar is an OCIP focusing on the township of Maubin, Myanmar. 

 Our goal is to empower the community and create a better awareness of certain prevalent health conditions to act as preventive measures. In the past, our trips have included: 

• Health education; in the form of presentations, booklets, and one-to-one sharing 
• Screenings; door-to-door health screening for hypertension and high blood sugar, as well as a health questionnaire to identify underlying diseases 

In terms of the range of health conditions targeted, we aim to be dynamic and place greater emphasis on current prevailing health issues. In the past, our main focus was on chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes; however, we have recently shifted our attention to the COVID-19 outbreak as Myanmar is currently facing a wave of new cases. 

Dover Park Hospice (DPH) is a non-profit organization designed to meet the growing need for hospice care. Hospice care is a holistic approach to caring for patients going through the last stages of their lives.

It's aims:

• Meet the physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual needs of patients and their loved ones, so as to alleviate suffering and maximise quality of life.
• Better the living, comfort the dying, and support the grieving with compassion and dignity.​

Volunteers at DPH play an integral role in all aspects of hospice work, from patient care to social activities and even administrative support. Our student volunteers from LKCMedicine play a variety of roles, including befriending and keeping the patients company. The simple act of being there for the patients in their final days goes a long way and makes a great difference in their lives.

Project Songkeum is an annual Overseas Community Involvement Project that brings the students abroad to visit Siem Reap, Cambodia annually. We aid our partner Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), Build Your Future Today (BFT) in our humanitarian efforts. These efforts are extended to both BFT and the underprivileged villages identified by BFT. Songkeum will be re-visiting the same 4 villages we visited once in June 2019 in future trips. 

Project Songkeum has 3 committees – Adults’ committee, Kids’ committee, and Vocational committee. The Adults’ committee was set up with hopes of improving the health literacy of villagers in order to ensure that the villagers are more self-sufficient. The objective of the kids’ committee is to provide a basic yet essential level of health education to the student population of the villages’ respective schools. Our Vocational committee strives towards empowering members of BFT and their affiliate members from other NGOs, which are achieved through carefully crafted learning materials and lessons which are delivered in an engaging manner. 

In addition to providing free health education to the villagers and imparting essential skills to the members and affiliates of BFT, Project Songkeum conducts health screenings for the children and adult population of the villages, as well as health surveys to gain a better understanding of the needs of the villagers.