Dr Watson from Central Surgery Gorleston
Dr Watson speaks about about his work for 'Fields of Life'
Fields of Life is a registered Charity in the UK and Ireland, established in 1995 by Trevor and Ruth Stevenson. The original vision was to pioneer a training farm developed into a needs based response to build a primary school for the local community.
The result - Fields of Life Academy built and established in 1997.
 The Fields of Life organisation have seen the need to provide health care to the communities so that each one becomes sustainable in terms of spiritual care, education, health and hygiene with water and economic help.
There is an ever increasing number of sponsored children - £14 per month. Children are monitored by Judith to ensure that they are making the best of their sponsorship and the audited accounts demonstrate that 98% of donated money goes to the work. Orphans can have a future.
We do have two  health centres which have come about independently of the schools and it was the need of a well for one of these which drew me in. We have formed a Health Advisory Group to the charity board and we are endeavouring to learn lessons from these centres in order to role out a bigger programme to provide to the communities. We are starting with nurses who will have responsibility for several schools in an area. They will provide immunisation in accordance with the government programme, health education and basic health care. Again we expect to learn from these personnel exactly what to expect and what we shall need to provide.
My original concept was to identify a project and come hom e to raise the funds to bring that project to fruition. This was naive in the extreme, because although it can be done and has been done it is much more efficient to work with a team, and that is where I am now. Our immediate task is to improve the efficiency of the health centres and to help develop systems and policies for health care, disease management, administration, medicine usage, health and hygiene education. We need to recruit and retain staff, and provide them with a career structure and training.
I anticipate several trips each year to various locations primarily as a facilitator and organiser but maybe as a health worker at some stage. (That may well include undertaking the three month tropical medicine course in Liverpool.) When in the UK I shall work part time in various roles both to maintain my medical skills and also to sponsor myself. The great thing about Fields of life is that all who work in the charity are self sponsored and so donations do go to where they should with only 2% ‘wastage’ on administration.
That will be my other role – to help raise funds for the work.
I would like to involve churches with churches, schools with schools, businesses with projects, social groups with a community, individuals with a well or a school – why not? For £50,000 you can have a school built – how great is that?
So at the present time I am busy getting orientated but a  lready others are developing their own interest and vocation. Until April I shall be a full time GP in a very busy practice but afterwards I shall be able to devote my time and energy to this work. I shall be happy to give presentations and act as a facilitator for others who may wish to become involved, and act as a conduit for donations.
In April 2008 I shall have nearly completed 34 years as a GP in Gorleston. During that time I have also been involved in occupational health which also includes environmental medicine. In the course of this work I have employed people to provide health care to oil companies’ workers in remote locations. During this work I have visited many countries to make health risk assessments and undertaken evaluation of health provision within each country. As I have been approaching retirement I have had an increasing interest in an endeavour to call upon my experience to identify projects in a needy location and then try to organise it.
There has been a step by step path that has led me to Fields of Life and Uganda. The African Children’s Choir, a well, a hospital, a referee for a donation who happened to be the head of FoL. Endorsements from encounters with people in Uganda, the local church, unsolicited donations and a strong feeling of call.
Fields of Life started in a way which was also quite clearly by divine governance and the anecdotes which are told by those involved constantly manifest that this is God’s work. I was amazed to hear how a village asked for a bridge to spare the villagers from marauding crocodiles. There just happened to be one in Northern Ireland where FoL is based and there happened to be someone who could grit blast and renovate, a vessel with next to nothing in it on a return trip to Africa at minimal cost and so it went on, and then what a great event another is needed and again God made it available.
How many of our daily encounters are actually by  Divine appointment? How many of our encounters do we actually work at to optimise the contact and what are the beneficial or harmful outcomes? If we consider that God’s messengers are angels it is much easier to consider how many we have encountered unawares.
Anyway FoL have the organisation and the know how to build and establish schools (£50,000 – 7 classrooms for 250 children). These are established after careful scrutiny of the requests. There must be an established and needy school which is ‘sponsored’ by a church.
As things develop there is the clear need to provide water holes (£5,000) for clean and more readily available water. The microfinance principal is being utilised to help people establish their own independence and even the employment of others.
If you would like to give financial donations or even if you feel that you would like to be involved in this important work of God's then please contact Dr David Watson (dwatson@nhs.net) Fields of Life (www.fieldsoflife.com)
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