Father and Daughter From Tanzania Receive Their First Medical Examination in New...( IN AMERICA FOR THE KIDS ...),Health

IN AMERICA FOR THE KIDS OF KILIMANJARO ANNUAL GALA Program provides school lunches to over 10,000 students in poor region of

Tanzania

ORANGE COUNTY, Calif., Aug. 31 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- When Mary and Joseph Mwanisawa agreed to travel over 15,000 miles to attend the second annual gala to benefit the Kids of Kilimanjaro school lunch program, they thought they were going to America only to tell their story about how much the program was improving their community. They didn't know they would also be receiving a full medical examination -- the first of their lives.

The medical exam will be conducted on Tuesday, September 4 from 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. at Dr. Kevin Barnett's office at 350 Old Hospital Road, Newport Beach.

Mary, a third-grade student at Mazoezi Primary School in Tanzania who receives the free school lunch and her father Joseph Mwanisawa, a teacher at the Moringe Secondary School, will arrive in California on September 1 and return on September 9.

"Mary and Joseph are both so inspiring to me," said Kids of Kilimanjaro Founder and President George Namkung. "When they agreed to travel to California, I knew we had to do whatever we could to get them a medical exam. When I asked Dr. Barrett, he instantly saw how important it would be and enthusiastically agreed."

Dr. Kevin Barnett, an internist from Newport Beach, will be the first doctor that Joseph and Mary have ever seen. In a country where 200,000 children under the age of five die each year from preventable diseases like malaria and pneumonia, advanced medical treatment is rare. Dr. Barnett will be conducting a complete physical, including taking x-rays and testing for TB and malaria.

"We sometimes lose focus on how lucky we are to be able to receive such quality health care in this country," explained Dr. Barnett, a former member of Hoag Hospital's Board of Directors. "Giving Mary and Joseph a medical exam was
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