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DECEMBER 2022 | JANUARY 2023 • IDAHO SENIOR INDEPENDENT
Hellermann’s team is assigned a shelter
every day for setting up a mobile clinic.
One of her most unforgettable Christmases
was spent in a crowded refugee camp in
Greece several years ago.
“It was a dismal place to be,” Hellermann
said.
Refugees from Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan,
and Africa lived in unsanitary conditions due
to crowding and lack of aid and were treated
for tuberculosis, chicken pox, measles, skin
conditions, viruses, and lice. They waited in
long lines to use a toilet—one for every 70
people. Eighty people were assigned to one
shower. Food lines were tedious, too.
How do they keep hope alive for refugees
living in seemingly hopeless circumstances?
“It’s hard with them waiting for asy-
lum,” Hellermann said. “But hope is the
only thing a refugee can hang on to.”
GIFT OF FRIENDSHIP
To feel hopeful, Hellermann and Milan
encourage each other and feel grateful for
their friendship, a lifelong gift. They met
years ago, the exact year is immaterial to
them, at a talk about Tibetan refugees while
they were working in Montana.
“We started chatting and felt like soul
sisters who had known each other forever,
like kindred spirits with similar ideas and
occupations,” Hellermann said. “We’re
both Buddhists and believe our mission is
to be healers. We both believe health care is
a basic human right worldwide.”
At the time, Milan was working in south-
western Montana, focusing on rural and
migrant patients. Hellerman lived in Helena,
where she was project manager of the Tibetan
Children’s Education Foundation. In 2014,
she was asked to trek into Zanskar, India,
a remote region of the Himalayas, to assess
healthcare needs there. She organized a
medical team and invited Milan.
To work with local residents and accom-
plish healthcare goals there and in other
countries, Hellermann envisioned and
established Hands On Global in 2015. The
organization’s mission statement is “to
serve the disadvantaged, underserved and
displaced people hand-to-hand and heart-
to-heart by providing medical support.”
Milan accepted her friend’s invitation to
serve as a Hands On Global board member.
“Valerie is an exceptional administrator
and accomplishes so much,” Milan said.
“My personality is to serve more than
to organize. When she started Hands On
Global, it resonated with me because vol-
unteers would work with and support locals
and stay as long as needed. We don’t just
show up for a few weeks and leave.”
To finance her medical philanthropy,
Milan raises money to pay for her travel
expenses and medical supplies through
local fundraising dinners she has, called
“Dinner for the Displaced” and “Spread
the Love.”
“Pocatello is a special place to live
because people are genuinely caring and
have a great heart for others in a wider
community,” she said. “I’m lucky to live
here and to have a flexible job that allows
me to volunteer overseas and to have family,
friends, and so many others who help.”
SPOTLIGHTS 13
INSPIRATION IN UKRAINE
Dr. Georgia Milan shares an excerpt from her
journal she kept while treating refugees in Ukraine
last spring.
On a daily basis, 5,000 refugees cross the bor-
der in Siret. Most are from Kyiv, Crimea and Kharkiv.
They are very efficient here at getting peo-
ple bused out to towns all over Europe. This
morning as I was crossing into Ukraine I saw
again a very tearful family hugging goodbye as
the man turned around to fight for Ukraine.
The desperation is beyond description
as these families say goodbye. Although in a
Ukrainian warming shelter I saw two sisters
reunited and the wailing of relief brought tears
to all of our eyes.
I am working now in Chernivtsi, Ukraine,
during the day but returning at night to the
border, where there are 33 refugee camps with
50,000 refugees. The camp today was in an old
school. It was so heartwarming to work with
Valerie Hellermann is a registered nurse and found- these brave people.
er and executive director of Hands On Global, a Much stress and yet always warm hearts.
nonprofit headquartered in Helena, Mont. Photo Every day we go to a different place. Our driver
by Nann Parrett. is from Kharkiv, which has been bombed badly.
He is here with his wife and son.
Milan has lived throughout the West A family took them in and there are 15
before calling Pocatello home. After grad- people living in three rooms. He has no job now
uating from the Mayo Clinic Alix School but won’t take money for transporting us. He
of Medicine in 1984 in Minnesota, she says he only wants to help. I hope this war is
completed her family medicine residency over soon. These people deserve a safe home.
in Austin, Texas. They only want peace, family and their
Accepting a job offer with the Indian freedom. I am inspired by them every day!
Health Services, she treated Mescalero
Apaches in New Mexico and the Shoshone-
Bannocks at Fort
Hall near Pocatello.
Wanting to work
with rural and
migrant popula-
tions, she moved
to Missoula. To
complement her ANYTIME!
medical expertise, Hospice of North Idaho is here to provide
she earned a degree
in international information and education about our unique
humanitarian aid. care, including palliative care, hospice care
“We had many
friends in Pocatello, and grief support.
so when an open-
ing came at the free
clinic, I applied for
the job, and we came
back,” she said.
She is unsure of
when she will go on
another overseas
medical mission.
“There are so
many needs,” she
said. ISI
Hands On Global’s tax-de-
ductible donations are
funneled specifically to
Ukraine at this time at
www.handsonglobal.org/
donate. The nonprofit is
also hoping for a donated
Call to speak with us today!
Call to speak with us today!
RV to convert into a mobile Call to speak with us today!
medical clinic for serving
marginalized communities
and migrant workers and (208) 772-7994
responding to disasters.
WWW.HOSPICEOFNORTHIDAHO.ORG