Afghanistan Project
In 2005, the WHUSH team formed a partnership with the Rezai Foundation.
The Rezai Foundation was founded by an Afghan gynaecologist who now lives in Düsseldorf. Dr. Mahdi Rezai, built a women's naturopathic hospital in Herat, Afghanistan under the name of his foundation.
In 2005, the WHUSH team formed a partnership with the Rezai Foundation.
The Rezai Foundation was founded by an Afghan gynaecologist who now lives in Düsseldorf. Dr. Mahdi Rezai, built a women's naturopathic hospital in Herat, Afghanistan under the name of his foundation.
During this partnership, the students supported the construction of a women's hospital with urgently needed materials. For this purpose, the WHUSH team at the time collected various donations in kind to put together an aid convoy. These included urgently needed medical equipment from the Koblenz region as well as ten hospital beds from a hospital in Berlin. In addition, medical equipment from an old doctor's office, four incubators for premature babies and sterilisation equipment were donated. In total, three containers donated by the company Kühne und Nagel were shipped to Herat.
All these materials are now being used to actively support the daily operations of the hospital.
What is special about this project is not only its scale and the impact that continues to this day, but also that it is the first project of the student initiative WHUSH.
More information about the Rezai Foundations:
Afghanistan Project 2.0 - Donating four ambulances
WHUSH and the Rezai Foundation remained in contact after this first joint project and in 2008 a new WHUSH team decided to continue supporting the hospital. It soon became clear that although the hospital was functioning well and helping many women, there was a problem in transporting the sick women as there were no ambulances.
So the students decided to help again and donate several ambulances.
Due to the success of the first project, they were able to find four ambulances. One was sponsored by the Boston Consulting Group, another by the social network StudiVZ. The TÜV also supported the team by donating free registrations for the cars as well as their insurance.
As during the first project, there was still a lack of functioning equipment on site, so the students took the opportunity to fill the ambulances to the top with medical equipment to support further care at the hospital.
The only problem: the ambulances were in Germany. The WHUSH team saw the opportunity for a once-in-a-lifetime experience and decided to drive the four ambulances from Germany to Afghanistan.
A funny anecdote from the trip: Before the Turkish border, many formalities were required and, among other things, an unexpected sum of 10,000 euros as a deposit. Kuehne und Nagel was kind enough to provide the money within 6 hours and brought it to the border in a money box, so that the students could enter Turkey after a while.