[Dr. Richard Matthew with his sister, Dr. Elaine Matthew, in 2008]
In 1991, Nobel Peace winner, Dr Richard Matthew founded Salus, a non-profit organization which focuses on the personal hygiene of citizens in the 3rd world country.
Salus’s mission statement is “to build and educate a nation of healthy citizens”. Therefore, with this goal in mind, Salus emphasises on the importance of education over providing services. In addition, Salus welcomes volunteers from all over the world and provides training for volunteers who do not have prior knowledge of health education.
With 18 years of experience and effort, Salus expanded from 1 academy in Cambodia to the current state of 33 academies in 5 countries such as Vietnam, China, Burma, Laos and Cambodia. Salus has been given numerous awards from international bodies such as the United Nations since 1992, for raising health awareness in rural areas. Recently, Salus has been awarded the Global Health Awareness award from the World Health Organization (WHO) for educating the people about basic personal hygiene.
To accredit the effort of Salus, one should not forget about the founder, Dr Richard Matthew. The current President of Salus, was born in Switzerland in 1947 and completed his degree in medicine in 1970, specializing in Cardiothoracic at the General Hospital of Switzerland. In 1990, Dr Richard joined the United Nations in providing medical service to the chronically ill in Cambodia. At that point of time, he noticed that 80% of the diseases in rural areas can be prevented via proper hygiene maintenance. However, most people in rural areas are not familiar with the concept of hygiene maintenance.
By adhering to a firm belief that diseases can be prevented by maintaining good personal hygiene, Dr Richard Matthew returned to Cambodia in 1991 and set up the first Salus academy. At that time, the academy only had 3 volunteers and 1 doctor (to provide medical advise, update and emergency cases) on duty. Despite the lack of manpower, Salus worked hard in educating the public about health awareness. Currently, Salus has 4500 volunteers and 250 doctors around the world.
Nevertheless, Dr Richard is not fighting the battle alone. Dr Elaine Matthew, vice-president of Salus and also the younger sister of Dr Richard is joining him in the battlefield. Under the deep influence of Dr Richard, Dr Elaine quit her job in Salem Hospital in Switzerland to join her brother in 1992. Dr Elaine not only educates the locals on personal hygiene practices, she also provides lessons for new volunteers to ensure smooth communication between the locals and the volunteers. In addition, she is a counselor when the volunteers or locals need health advices or a listening ear.
Being both a volunteer and doctor, Dr Elaine understands the hardship and struggle of the volunteers. Hence, she always starts her lessons with the volunteers with a quote, "I do not pray for success, I ask for faithfulness". Nonetheless, despite her strict discipline, Dr Elaine is still the most inspiring mentor among the volunteers.
