I would like to introduce you to a charismatic personality , winner of more than 65 awards including the CNN Real Heroes award, Ms. UMA PREMAN.

Towards July end , I read about group called ?Helping Hands? who work towards environment and humanitarian issues. I  joined this group. We ,group members, were called and informed about fund raising event and the joint press conference of Ms. Uma Preman and ? Helping Hands? to happen on 1^st August in Dubai.

That was the time when I googled to know more about Ms. Uma Preman. I was awestruck to read about her , her life and her mission .

I , immediately , volunteered to participate in that and donated for the cause as well. She was visiting Dubai in beginning August and we the members of ? Helping hands? did a fundraising campaign for rasing funds for patients who need treatment but can not afford.

We collected funds which were given to her during her Aug visit. Unfortunately , I had to go to India on 31^st july for my dental treatment so I lost the chance to meet her but my mother represented me and met her. She was mesmerized to meet her.

Our this event was covered in 10 TV channels , 3 FM radio stations and 4 newspapers. Thanks to media.

Ms. Uma Preman is a woman of courage. She  lost her husband in her younger age . She lost her husband to tuberculosis due to lack of treatment. In her loss she found the mission of her life. She set up free medical information cum care centre in the memory of her husband. The centre provides information to patients and helps them raise money for treatment. Uma Preman, who runs a charity that offers medical information as well as financial and moral support to patients suffering from life-threatening medical conditions in India, believes in practising what she preaches.

Uma Preman even donated her own kidney to save a patient's life. Salil Kumar couldn?t believe his ears. For a moment he thought the woman, a stranger who he?d started talking to while waiting in the reception of his doctor?s clinic in Tamil Nadu, southern India, was joking when she told him, ?I?ll give you my kidney?.

Sitting on the cold iron bench and sharing his life story with her, he wondered how anyone could joke about something so serious as his kidney condition. He told her that he was an orphan, that a genetic condition had affected his kidneys leaving both dysfunctional and that he was too poor to afford any more dialysis.

?I really have no option but to hope for a miracle as I?m unable to bear the pain unless someone donates a kidney to me,? the 24-year-old office boy told her. But the woman, Uma Preman, was serious, and repeated the offer. ?Let?s undergo the required tests and see if mine would match,?? she said.

?Do... do you really mean it??? he asked, tears welling. She nodded.

Practise what you preach

That day, Ms. Uma had only been at the doctor?s office because she was accompanying a friend with a kidney problem for a check-up. After she  spoke to Salil the first day at the hospital, she thought  ?Now what do I do? Listen and just move on??? No, she felt she had to do all she could to improve his situation.  A month later, after a series of tests the transplant happened.  Ms. Uma gave her left kidney and a new lease of life to the man who fell at her feet in gratitude as soon as he exited the hospital. Like her idol, Mother Teresa, 42-year-old Ms. Uma clearly believes in practising what she preaches.

After surgery, she spent less than a week in hospital and a further month taking it easy at home before heading back to work.

Ms. Uma is a social worker who runs a charity called the Santhi Information Medical Centre in Kerala, southern India. The charity offers medical information and care to the poor across India at highly reduced costs.

Today, 13 years later, Salil is an active member of the charity, spreading awareness about health issues to people. When Uma returned to her office after the transplant, she was inundated with a bizarre request from around 300 people who had heard about her incredible generosity.

According to the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), by 2030 there will be 100 million people in India with diabetes, a leading cause of renal failure.

Help starts at home

At first she started off by motivating family members of patients to consider donating a kidney to save their loved ones. But she soon realised that kidney transplant is not the only solution for poor patients who couldn?t afford the cost of post operative care.

Over the years, she has facilitated kidney transplants for 640 patients, 62 of them are people working in the Gulf region. Around 150,000 others have received dialysis at the seven free and subsidised centres and two mobile dialysis units she runs in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. These centres have 45 dialysis machines with qualified nephrologists and 58 full-time staff and technicians manning them.

Shedoes not stop at giving assistance to kidney patients. She has also helped 20,500 patients get heart surgery. Her charity has also provided mobile laboratory facilities in rural areas of Kerala and conducts regular free medical camps. Two mobile intensive-care units in Palakkad and Wayanad in Kerala help poor patients get immediate medical help.

Her passion to help the poor and her work in extremely difficult conditions has earned her 37 awards from various government bodies and organisations. Notably, in 2010 she won the CNN-IBN Real Heroes Award. The award, an initiative of Delhi-based TV news channel IBN Network 18 and Reliance Foundation, acknowledges the contribution of unsung heroes in India.

Although her charity is called Santhi, which means peace in Hindi, it was born out of a personal tragedy for Uma. Her husband Preman Thaikkad succumbed to multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis in 1997 in Kerala. For seven years Uma and Preman had visited several hospitals trying to find a diagnosis and a cure. It was only at the very end of his life that Preman was diagnosed correctly. Delayed detection and improper treatment methods were largely responsible for his death, she says.

?During our hospital visits we used to see scores of patients and relatives running from pillar to post in search of information or help regarding medical services and treatments.? She realised that the need of the hour was the dissemination of medical information and treatment to save lives. ?My husband and I were victims of lack of information,?? she says. ?And I realised it could cut lives short.

On a mission

So just 15 days after she became a widow, she left her six-year-old son, Nikil, with some friends and made it her mission to travel to around 100 hospitals across India to gather medical information, which she decided to share with patients and their families.

Her three-month journey culminated in the formation of Santhi Medical Information Centre on August 24, 1997 in Guruvayur, Kerala. The institution continues to provide medical information to more than 100 people every day via telephone, email or post about hospitals and treatments available for a variety of health conditions.

Although she is not a medical professional, she is familiar with a host of medical treatment procedures and medicines, which she says she learnt during meetings with doctors and nurses.

Today, she keeps abreast of the latest treatments and medicines. She also gives talks to poor people in villages about organ donation, transplants and lifestyle changes to prevent life-threatening diseases.

According to figures collected from hospitals, every day nine people are declared brain dead in road accidents in Kerala. If their families are motivated to donate their organs, within six months we would have enough kidneys for transplants to meet the current need.

During her first visit to Dubai , she met several people who donated enough money which she used to buy five secondhand dialysis machines. She /her trust has  now got close to 45 dialysis machines which are helping hundreds of people every day.

She is addicted to social work. She says she gets her daily dose of oxygen from helping others.

UAE Leading daily ?Emirates 24/7? covered it nicely , link is:

http://www.emirates247.com/news/emirates/dubai-teenagers-ramadan-offer-2013-08-09-1.517050