Summary of my trip to El Salvador and Egypt

Deseret International

Deseret International provides the opportunity for others to live a normal and productive life.

Since 1989, the Deseret International Foundation, a volunteer based non-profit 501(c)3, has cultivated partnerships with local doctors in an effort to establish permanent and sustainable healthcare in developing countries.

Deseret International empowers and elevates local medical communities to reach out to people in need. Deseret International’s role is to establish a permanent Deseret program and to assist them with the items they need: supplies, equipment, facilities, and screening and campaign infrastructure; this may also include technical training. As a result, Deseret International’s partners continue in ongoing outreach programs of their own.

EL SALVADOR

Objectives

My Internship with Deseret International straddled two different countries, El Salvador and Egypt, as well as a plethora of objectives.

The objectives in El Salvador included learning the business processes of an organization called Fudem.

Objective #1: I specifically learned Fudem’s business processof building and selling eye glasses.

Objective #2: Writing a business plan based upon the things that I had learned from Fudem for doctors in Egypt.

Activities

I spent one week in El Salvador learning the business operations of Fudem. Each day I was given a new area to study and pick apart. I spent my first day with different managers and doctors in the first phase of Fudem, the examining process.

I spent the second day learning the roles of the doctors at Fudem, those that examine eyes and those that perform cataract, strabismus, and cornea transplant surgeries. I spent a number of hours watching doctors examine individuals but probably the greater portion of the day watching strabismus surgeries. Strabismus is a condition where the muscles of the eyes are so tight that it makes the person go cross-eyed.

The most amazing surgery to me was the cataract surgery. I’ve always heard the term and I thought I understood what it was until I actually saw a cataract removed from a person’s eye.

On the third day I went to out on an outreach program. An outreach program’s purpose is to bring eye care to those who may not be able to travel to Fudem. In the outreach program there is a doctor that examines eyes. After the doctor examines the eyes he or she will write up a prescription for the person. The person in need of glasses takes the prescription to a person who helps them pick out their frames. The prescription will go back to Fudem headquarters where their glasses will be built. After they are built the glasses will be delivered back to the village.

On the Fourth and Fifth day I visited the location at Fudem that builds the glasses. This was the most important step for me, because the doctors in Egypt have yet to move into building eye glasses. In preparation for this I visited a professional who builds glasses in Salt Lake City, Utah. The machinery that is used is hi-tech, but doesn’t require a lot of training, probably after a few days a person being trained can be proficient at building glasses.

I spent the last day with the Executive Directory asking him questions and breaking down Fudem’s business. Is was very productive and the information that I came away with has been helpful in building the business plan for Deseret International to help train some of the doctors in Egypt.

Contacts

Ricardo Granada: Fudem Executive Director

Maria Betancourt: Fudem Optometrist

Santa: Fudem Executive over Public Relations

Achievements:

• Traveling to El Salvador
• Learning how Fudem works
• Building a business plan based off of Fudem’s business model

EGYPT

Objectives

Objective #1: Set-up a communications system

Objective #2: Hire an employee to be a liaison between the doctors and Deseret International.

Objective #3: Begin implementing the building of glasses.

Objective #4: Officially register Deseret International in Egypt.

Objective #5: Finding a location for a surgical center.

Activities

I spent a lot of time bouncing between different doctors, campaigns, and other organizations. The following are some details on where I stand with some of my objectives.

Objective #1: The chosen form of communication is Skype. Skype is an internet phone that does not cost anything. I purchased the needed equipment (headphones) and downloaded the programs on the computers that the doctors and potential Deseret International employee will be using. The downloading process was quite lengthy because there were a few different programs that I had to download and the internet had a very slow connection it took about 5 to 6 hours to officially download everything. We made a test call while I was in Egypt and it looks like we are officially good to go. I will continue to research other sources of communication.

Objective #2: I spent a fairly good portion of my time searching out an employee. The requirements for hire included speaking English fluently, the ability to type in English and Arabic, good communication skills, self-starter ability, and highly motivated. Towards the end of my three week stay I found a man that I and the doctors thought would be good for the job, but on the second to last day of my stay he contacted me and told me that he won’t be able to take the position because he would have to work on his day of worship. So, I now have the challenge of continuing my search. There was great benefit in being in Egypt because I was able to grow my network and I now have a great network to work from to find the needed employee.

Objective #3: The glasses will also be a process. I spent a good amount of my time traveling with the doctors on charitable campaigns. In those charitable campaigns the doctors examine hundred of people. The primary reason for the exam is to search out diseases or conditions where the patient will need surgery. The prescription of glasses is further down on the priority list. When they issue glasses they have some frames that the patients can pick from, but then they ship all of their orders to a factory where the glasses are built. By having a factory do all of their work they lose a substantial portion of the profit they could make. My goal is to begin working with a doctor to set-up a system where the glasses can be built. The system will be rolled out in three phases. The first phase cuts out one piece of the glasses being built. The second phase cuts out another, and the third phase cuts out the factory enabling the doctors to completely build their patients glasses. Over the next year I will continue to work with Dr. Kaled on this project. Dr. Kaled originally was over the glasses and he’s done a great job in marketing them, but he and I will begin working through the phases and helping their charitable campaigns become sustainable and potentially profitable.

Objective #4: Registering Egypt was a challenge, one that I didn’t expect. I came to Egypt with some official papers from Deseret International, I thought that I had everything that I needed but after visiting with the Egyptian government we learned that some of the documents were not notarized nor set with an official seal so they would not accept them. I spent a lot of time dancing between The US embassy, the doctors, and the Egyptian government. Since I wasn’t able to accomplish this objective in Egypt I will be following through by visiting the Egyptian Embassy in Washington DC to officially notarize and seal the papers. I will then pass the papers onto a doctor in Egypt who will begin the registration process. To my surprise I was grandfathered into Deseret’s organization when the doctors asked for me to be included on the board of directors for Deseret’s organization in Egypt. I felt pretty honored considering the wonderful men that will be serving on the board with me. I realize for the Egyptian branch of Deseret International it’s important for them to have some American members for political reasons, but nonetheless I feel honored.

Objective #5: Finding a surgical center was a project that took continual follow-up. The doctors certainly were very busy while I was there, but through consistent follow-up I was able to help move along the progress in finding a building to continue Deseret International’s business of providing low-cost/zero-cost surgeries to the impoverished. The location that is in the top running is in Fayoum about a hundred kilometers outside of the Cairo. Fayoum is one of the poorest cities in Egypt and it has a high population of people (around 2 million). Because of theses two reasons and other reason, Fayoum has been selected as the best place to further Deseret International’s work. Currently the plan is to rent the building and as the months progress further analysis will be made to see if it is worthwhile to purchase the building outright.

Contacts

Dr. Saed Saif: Executive Director for Egypt Deseret and Head over the Opthamology program at University of Cairo.

Dr. Yasser Saif: Egypt Deseret Board Member

Dr. Ahmed Hathoot: Egypt Deseret Board Member

Dr. Kaled Director

Achievements

See Objectives above and Challenges below.

Challenges

There were a number of challenges for me. The first was how little time I had to accomplish some major objectives. It’s challenging to walk into a new culture and new language and to be able to jump from the gun in accomplish the objectives in only three weeks my trip should have been closer to three months instead of three weeks. Another challenge was the doctor’s busy schedules. The two main doctors that I was working with worked until 3am in the morning 3 days out of the week. They were so busy it was difficult to find time to work with them, but they certainly sacrificed their time so that I could accomplish the work (at least the work that I did accomplish while I was there) I needed to accomplish. I will continue to follow-up on the objectives that I have originally set out to do until I am finished with them.

Overall Internship Experience: I found this to be a very important experience for me personally. This internship has helped facilitate learning that I cannot get out of classes, homework, and tests. I have learned about cultures, different religions, political structures, poverty, important business principles, traveling-smarts, and other life-altering lessons. This internship will be an experience that I will continue to learn from for a long, long time.