The consequences of taping up some boxes

Nearly five years ago, I spent an evening in Oxford packing some books into boxes as one of my friend Anne’s projects to provide medical texts to under-resourced students in Zimbabwe.

A couple of days ago I had an email from Anne informing me that the coordinating student has now qualified, and, what’s more, is now directing medical training in Zimbabwe. This is a wonderful thing, but it does have a rather daunting further consequence: right now he is working for Medicin Sans Frontieres in Sierra Leone where, unfortunately, the ebola epidemic is rampant. As I wrote in that earlier blog entry, I feel connected to this outcome, even though my contribution was negligible. The return on this small effort is remarkable, however: somewhere out there, in difficult circumstances, a newly qualified young doctor is making a difference in ways I cannot even begin to comprehend.

The little we can do is rarely of no consequence.