On November 6, Kenro Izu will be honored in New York City with the 2014 World of Children Health Award at our annual Awards Ceremony along with 5 other extraordinary changemakers for children
Saving a Child’s Life. Kenro Izu is using his funding to construct a brand-new children’s hospital in Laos. He’s bringing the same strategy and efforts to this new hospital as the one he created in the 1990s that transformed pediatric healthcare in Cambodia.
In 1999, the Angkor Hospital for Children opened its doors. Subsequently, satellite clinics were opened as a model of locally sustainable healthcare.
Angkor Hospital for Children. Since then, his organization Friends Without A Border (FWAB) has treated over 1.2 million children and provided advanced training to thousands of health workers. On February 11, 2015, a similar state-of-the-art pediatric teaching hospital in Laos was completed an opened to the public. Funding from World of Children Award supports FWAB in constructing and equipping this new hospital (the Lao Friends Hospital for Children) in Laos.
March 2015 – World of Children Founders travel to Cambodia and to Laos Click here to watch the Video from visit to the Angkor Children’s Hospital in Siem Reap, Cambodia
In March 2015, Founders Harry and Kay Leibowitz traveled to Cambodia to visit the children served by Kenro’s hospitals. While Kenro was unable to join them, our Founders took a group of eager travelers with them to visit the Angkor Hospital for Children in Cambodia and the new Lao Friends Hospital for Children in Laos. “The number of children being served and families being saved is almost unbelievable for a small country like Cambodia. Benito’s team services hundreds of children every day in some 60 projects nationwide and Kenro’s one hospital in Siem Reap sees at least 500 children a day in a facility that is not even half the size of a standard US Hospital. The children all come into their programs challenged or ill, disenfranchised or injured, hopeless or frightened, but they all exit the programs smiling, with a great hope for the future and a full life ahead of them.”
At AHC the group was greeted by Helen Catton –
Kenro Izu didn’t know how to run a hospital. He didn’t have a medical degree. But he knew he had to stop the horrible tragedy that he had just witnessed from ever happening again.
“It was a decisive moment when I saw a young girl die in front of my eyes in the regional hospital,” Kenro said.
Saving a Child’s Life. Kenro Izu is using his funding to construct a brand-new children’s hospital in Laos. He’s bringing the same strategy and efforts to this new hospital as the one he created in the 1990s that transformed pediatric healthcare in CambodiaEdddd
The amazing volunteer Angela Heim-Ehmer from Munich Germany…Angela with the pharmacy team at the Lao Friends Hospital for Children.
While she was here she also participated in running the 7km during the Luang Prabang half marathon which was a fundraiser for the hospital on Oct 18th, brought a bunch of needed donated medical supplies with her (all items that we have a lot of trouble finding locally), and will also be bringing back lots of LFHC pamphlets & photos with her to set up a fundraiser at her workplace in Germany. She is a real star!
“Hello, my name is Angela Heim-Ehmer, I come from Munich in Germany and worked as a volunteer in the pharmacy at the Lao Friend Hospital for Children since 4 weeks. We help the Laotian colleagues to develop the important standards for a hospital,support them in their daily work and work together to ensure a secure supply of children with medicine. I am very happy to be able to make a small contribution for children in and around Luang Prabang with my work at the Lao Friend Hospital for children.
I hope I will come back again! Many regards, Angela Heim-Ehmer”
Having studied psychology, Helen initially worked in Japan for five years. She volunteered in South East Asia, seeing not only a great need for compassionate health care and education but also was struck by the imbalance of life that seems to be a roll of the dice. Helen believes that her privilege of being brought up with parents, opportunity, shelter and health care creates a responsibility for her to help those who were not as lucky to be born into what we consider basic human right.
She returned to the UK and studied nursing and gained practical care giving experience working in a London hospital.
She took a nursing course in tropical diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, then worked on the Thai Burmese border for two years mostly helping the Burmese, Mon and Karen who had little access to health care.
In 2010 she went to Angkor Hospital for Children which is a pediatric teaching hospital in order to manage the Satellite Clinic from the ground located one hour from Siem Reap in Cambodia. .
She dove in and found herself to be the only foreigner in the town and a large cultural and linguistic barrier. Her assimilation into Cambodia rural culture was started by living “in a modest, umm, house, with no running water; yet it was replete with spiders, scorpions and rats. Despite the cold water bucket baths and basic living conditions, she stuck it out, and is now transitioning the leadership of Satellite to the senior Cambodian staff.
Helen recently came to Vancouver and was a sought after speaker at hospitals and private gatherings. She has power point presentations about the hospital, she collects appropriate medical supplies and even donations of knitted hats for neonates and premature babies. Helen is creating awareness and interest for a community that is in desperate need of help. It is the kind of help that seems easy to give. “When there is so little, just a few things go a long way.”
2015 St Paul’s ICU at UBC dental dept UBC ICU
FACTS:
Angkor Hospital for Children, founded by Kenro Izu, annual budget is actually 6 million dollars.
Taste The World fundraiser promotes awareness and donors and funds the most pressing needs at the hospital. Because it is not a restricted donation it can fill areas of greatest need in the hospital.
“If I have my health and energy and something to share I want to share that privilege to balance out that equation.”
“ “I feel extremely grateful to be able to do a job I am extremely passionate about. It is not just a job but a passion.”
Helen Catton spoke at the last two TTW events. She is British nurse who has worked in Asia for 12 years she heads up the satellite hospital for AHC and leads the Cambodian team to provide healthcare to rural population.
……a few words with World of Children Award Honouree Kenro Izu
Where do you see Friends Without A Border going in the next 10 years?
Friends’ main focus over the next 10 years will be on Lao Friends Hospital for Children and developing programs of Treatment + Education + Prevention, and to create a center for teaching pediatrics in Lao PDR. Our goal is to build LFHC as the major education center of pediatric health care and create a positive impact on health care for the whole country.
With LFHC, the goal is that all children who seek help will receive high-quality and compassionate care…it’s as I always tell our staff, “Treat every patient as if they were your own child.”
How will World of Children Award help you to expand your program?
It will help us spread awareness and put a spotlight on an area that has been much neglected. Very little attention has been paid to Southeast Asia, Laos and Cambodia especially. This is simply due to the fact that many people are in the dark about the struggles those communities face, and how desperate the health situation is. Having the backing of such a respected organization as World of Children Award will help us reach a wider audience and will bring more weight to the situation.
Kenro Izu first encountered Cambodia’s appalling lack of pediatric healthcare when he met children suffering from a variety of disabilities and illnesses during a photography trip in 1993.
Tragically, he witnessed a young girl die in front of his eyes in the regional hospital. Her life was cut short because her parents could not pay the $2 needed to treat her. The hospital and the doctors of the hospital left the girl alone without providing any treatment.
Kenro Izu – 2014 World of Children Health Award
Published on Nov 13, 2014
http://www.worldofchildren.org/kenro – Kenro is the recipient of our 2014 Health Award. Kenro founded Friends Without A Border, a children’s hospital in Cambodia, which has treated over 1.2 million children in Southeast Asia and provided advanced training to thousands of health workers. And now his award will go towards establishing the Lao Friends Hospital for Children in Luang Prabang, Laos.
Since 1999, Friends without a Board (FWAB) has treated over 1.2 million children and provided advanced training to thousands of health workers. Today, construction is complete and a similar state-of-the-art pediatric teaching hospital in Laos, the Lao Friends Hospital for Children (LFHC), is open. Funding from World of Children Award helped FWAB construct and equip this new hospital in Laos.
“Our goal is to build LFHC as the major education center of pediatric health care and create a positive impact on health care for the whole country,” Kenro said.
The Lao Friends Hospital for Children – A Sneak Peak Inside the Brand New Pediatric Facility –This video was shot on location during a humanitarian trip led by World of Children Award Founders Harry Leibowitz and Kay Isaacson-Leibowitz. To see how you can help, visit: https://www.worldofchildren.org/issue…
Volunteer at Lao Friends Hospital for Children 
Available positions at Lao Friends Hospital for Children (LFHC)
We accept applications for medical volunteers of all different specialities on a rolling and continual basis throughout the year. In addition to the opportunities listed below, all doctors, nurses, and other trained medical specialists are welcome to send their resume to fwab@fwab.org at any time.
Check out our Volunteer Blog to read about experiences of past medical volunteers in Laos.
The angle of meaningful travel is hopefully of interest to you.
Many families visiting the hospital have become inspired to volunteer and become long term donors. In fact the experience has been so profoundly moving that some families have changed their regular restful and relaxing travel to volunteering and philanthropic experiences. The gift of family time and experiential relationships while being philanthropic has not only been immensely rich but been an opportunity for authentic immersion in different cultures and has deepened their family time, core values and personal experiences. Some teenagers, so motivated to engage with Angkor Hospital for Children and the Lao Friends Hospital for Children have applied to the volunteer program and changed their academic goals to medical school or international relations.
