Highlights
- Friends of the Children Foundation donates mannequins to Melbourne hospitals
- This aims to support online teaching of medical procedures due to COVID restrictions
- Shashi Kochhar, the founder says his organisation works to support paediatric healthcare in Melbourne
With the pandemic restricting most educational procedures, medical students in Australia are having to take their training online as well. For this purpose, hospitals are in need of various kinds of mannequins.
Friends of the Children Foundation, a not-for-profit that works to support children’s health, has donated a number of mannequins, also called ‘dummies,’ to children’s hospitals.
Melbourne’s Shashi Kochhar, the founder of this organisation believes they will be instrumental in training upcoming paediatricians who are unable to learn the regular way due to coronavirus restrictions.
“At one stage in life, I realised there is nothing more that I want. Rather, it is time to pay back. That is when Friends of the Children Foundation was established in 1998,” Mr Kochhar tells SBS Punjabi.
“Our foundation regularly raises funds for Melbourne hospitals like Royal Children’s, Monash Children’s, Joan Kirner Women’s and Children’s and the paediatric wards of Dandenong and Casey Hospitals. But we thought of donating mannequins last year after COVID hit,” he adds.
Every year, Mr Kochhar and his team of volunteers raise funds for the Good Friday Appeal to support paediatric healthcare at Royal Children’s Hospital.
Later this year, Friends of the Children Foundation aims to donate a mother-and-baby mannequin to a hospital for the purposes of study.
The Friends of the Children Foundation team. Source: Supplied by Shashi Kochhar
Mr Kochhar, who migrated to Australia from India more than half a century ago, is now spending his post-retirement time helping children.
He came to Australia in 1971 as an international student and then spent most of his working life in Victoria’s wool industry.
“When I migrated to Australia, I came with only a few suitcases. But over a short period of time, this land has given me everything that I wanted in life.
“So, I feel it is now my duty to do something in return for this land of opportunity,” he adds sounding grateful to the country he adopted as his new home.
Friends of the Children Foundation's charity walk. Source: Shashi Kochhar
Mr Kochhar assessed many options to do that before zeroing in on helping children, as he believes they are the “future of this country”.
“Friends of the Children Foundation primarily focuses on helping children as they are soft at heart and at the start of the learning curve of life.
“Children are curious to learn new things. After they learn, they are keen to teach others as well,” quips Mr Kochhar.
Friends of the Children Foundation also supports other causes such as environment, the homeless and community clean-up. They also collect excess bread from local bakeries and distribute it amongst the homeless and needy.
Friends of the Children foundation helping for wheelchairs. Source: Shashi Kochhar
“We have undertaken many projects with the support of the community. We encourage people to donate blood.
“We don’t like to see anything going to waste. If someone has anything to spare and lets us know, we find a needy person for that.
“And lastly, we’d also like to see our children following our tradition, culture and history,” signs off Mr Kochhar.
Click on the player at the top of the page to listen to this audio in Punjabi.
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