Coming soon! Online shop! When I find time!
I fought unsuccessfully to modify Rockingam City Council's policy which prevents operators of home occupations from selling any ancillary products.
It's a bummer, after having invested significantly to provide a wellness service designed to reduce the number of visits to me that clients need to make!
Until I create the online shop, you can have any products for free
Should you wish to donate something, however little, for the charities I support, well that's OK too, but all items are strictly free for the foreseeable future
So far I have raised and donated $16,000 for charities in Laos and Cambodia, apart from $1,600 for humanitarian aid to the millions of displaced Ukrainian refugees.
The majority has gone to the two charities I currently support, Cope Laos (prosthetics) $6,000 and Apopo Hero Rats for mine clearance in Cambodia, $4,750.
I will shortly include details of all the products, which include Liquid Magnesium and Eagle Balm, (consumables), plantar fasciitis rollers, and a variety of wearables from compression socks, thermosleeves, knee supports, designed to either relieve or prevent aches and pains. The idea of the wellness section was for you to be able to "Try before you buy" for size and comfort.
It seemed like a noble idea at the time, but as they say, such is life. I can only operate this as an online shop with a delivery service. The whole point of try before you buy was to help you avoid buying a product online which might be the wrong size or wasn't exactly what you wanted.
Photos of items listed below will be posted when time permits. Please ignore prices as this page is under construction. I will be adding revised photos, and more of them, ASAP.
Karma Rub Liquid Magnesium products
4 sizes of Liquid Magnesium
2 types of Magnesium massage cream (Regular and Sports)
Night Cream, texture like Nivea for the muscles in your face
Two sizes of shower body wash
Two sizes of Eagle Balm, a rubefacient from Indonesia containing Eucalyptus and Menthol
Large and small massage balls.
Plantar fasciitis roller for your feet.
Variety of different knee supports in different sizes.
Compression socks, 3 different types in several sizes.
3 sizes of Thermosleeve which can be used hot or cold for joints or calves, forearms etc.
Two types of thigh support.
We have been to Laos three times and Cambodia four times. You can't help being moved by the challenges they face. You simply can't.
In the case of Laos, in what can only be described as an act of genocide, during the Vietnam war, the USA carpet bombed Laos with 240 million bombs, of which 80 million failed to go off. They face two issues, clearing the bombs and deaing with the devastating effects of people being killed and maimed by the UXO, Unexploded Ordnance.
I decided to help with prosthetics. I have visited the COPE Laos centre in Vientiane. They have a museum showing some of the bombs, large and small and early prosthetics, seen on the walls of my clinic, and a separate facility where they make and fit the prosthetics. I recommended the use of 3 D printers for making colourful as well as functional prosthetics. Unfortunately, the costs of the materials is way more expensive than traditional, cheap local materials. I donate to them using globaldevelopmentgroup.org. This is an Australian charity portal which allows you to select which charities to support in many different countries.
My interest was aroused on our second visit to Vang Vieng, a popular hangout for travellers and backpackers. There is a concrete runway in the middle of town, and I asked why it wasn't used. Vang Vieng is located in between the new capital, Vientiane, and the old, royal capital city of Luang Prabang. It is a long bomdrive from both capitals to Vang Vieng, so it seemed strange not to be using the airport. It turned out that this was a US airforce/bomber base. From here, they would bomb Vietnam on the way out and carpet bomb the rest of Laos, deemed as sympathisers due to part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail being partly within Laos borders in the mountains in some places.
After doing research, I posted the airfield as an attraction on Tripadvisor, together with its history. Being a US company, Tripadvisor were in denial and kept moderating my posts! However the CIA's Secret Air Force base, Lima Site 6, for which it hid its covert operations by using an airline called Air America, in Vang Vieng, from 1955 to 1974, is now well documented on youtube videos for all to see. Air America's slogan? Any thing, Any where, Any Time. Also strong rumours of unofficial drug running.
Here is one such video, to explain the history of the military airfield
Further research found out how many bombs had been dropped, and, importantly how many did not explode at the time.
On one of our visits to Cambodia, in 2016, we visited a minefield a couple of hours out of Siem Reap, home of the City of Angkor on its outskirts and the most famous temple of them all, Angkor Wat.
Cambodia has around 5 million unexploded mines (and other UXO) left by the Pol Pot regime of the Kbmer Rouge. We were there to drop of $2,000 in cold hard cash to help with the Apopo Hero Rats project. By dropping off the cash, there is not going to be wastage going on admin.
These Hero Rats, the Giant Pouched Rats from Africa, are trained to sniff out unexploded mines.
Each plot of land is tested by two rats in turn.
When we were there, the first rat scratched at the surface to indicate a mine, and a marker is put down. The second rat followed suit at the same place.
Here is a video from 2016 of the Apopo Hero Rats in action.
Compared to dogs, rats are not heavy enough to detonate the mines. It takes them a year to train. They work for 5 years and are then retired.
The giant pouched rats were first used in Africa as laboratory assistance, sniffing saliva samples to detect the presence of tuberculosis. They are almost the size of a cat!
Hero Rats will be needed wherever peace breaks out.
There is a photo of a dummy cheque used for a photo op in my clinic, showing a photo of a giant pouched rat
I recommended to globaldevelopmentgroup.org that this was a worthwhile project to add to their list of supported charities.
They go through a process of visiting the charity and checking bona fides, and added the project to their list.
About a year later I made an enquiry out of curiosity to find out how much they had raised for this project. They advised that the contributions exceeded their expectations, and included a $10,000 donation from a Japanese liquor giant who wished to remain anonymous. Which just goes to show that you can provide help not just with money, but with an idea.