Congratulations to our June 2010 grantees:
Carter Center
Jhpiego
Esperança, Inc.
RAIN for the Sahel and Sahara
The next Board meeting to select new grantees is November 4, 2010
Carter Center
Jhpiego
Esperança, Inc.
RAIN for the Sahel and Sahara
The next Board meeting to select new grantees is November 4, 2010
Sightsavers International, Nigeria
Project Overview
Sightsavers International was awarded $275,298 for a three year project to reduce the burden of two neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) - onchocerciasis and lymphatic filariasis - in the Nigerian states of Kebbi, Kogi and Kwara over a period of three years. The three states have a combined population of approximately 9 million, around half of which are already affected or at risk of contracting one or both of the conditions according to current mapping of endemicity. The majority of those at risk are the poor, living either in rural settings or in slum areas of major towns and cities. The target states have been chosen because of the high number of people at risk, government commitment to the intervention and the lack of existing measures to combat the diseases there. The program will integrate the distribution of medications to combat the two diseases using a community directed treatment methodology, with core activities including community health education, training of volunteer distributors, distribution of medications, advocacy and monitoring and evaluation. The program seeks to protect 2.5million people per year from each of the diseases, which are two of the leading causes of disability in the developing world and therefore significant drivers of poverty and disenfranchisement. The main implementing partners will be the state Ministries of Health and the program will therefore be fully integrated into existing public health systems. Ownership at the community level, vital to the success of the program, will be driven by the volunteer distributors chosen from within the communities which the program serves and community leaders who will be involved in program planning and mobilisation.
Overall Goal
The project’s goal is to integrate the distribution of medications to control onchocerciasis and lymphatic filariasis into the health system to reduce the prevalence of these neglected tropical diseases in three states in Nigeria.
Health & Development International, Niger
Project Overview
Health & Development International (HDI) was awarded a two year grant of $192,500 to rapidly prevent women from dying in childbirth and rapidly prevent obstetric fistula in a remote, multi-ethnic sahelian area in Niger. HDI aims to have at least 75% fewer women dying of blocked childbirth and at least 50% fewer fistula cases within two years in the project area by using a man and a woman volunteer in each village, monthly reporting, and eight other organizational tools. Village volunteers, especially the females, have several responsibilities, most importantly: i) encourage pregnant women to go to the nearest health center for prenatal consultation, ii) encourage each pregnant woman to have her baby in a health care setting, at the nearest health center where a trained nurse can help in emergencies, iii) ask permission in advance, to evacuate the woman should she experience prolonged labor in the village, iv) initiate emergency medical evacuation if labor lasts too long, i.e. if she sees that the sun may rise a second time over a woman in labor, v) register data on a form as events occur, a form made to allow data entry by illiterate people. The current pilot project which began February 1, 2008, serves 100,000 people who are mostly subsistence farmers and nomads and the vast majority of the people are illiterate. This project aims to expand this successful pilot program to an additional 63,000 women of childbearing age some 100 kilometers from the current project area.
Overall Goal
The project goal is to rapidly save women’s lives and protect their dignity using organizational methods from successful disease eradication programs, and to expand the project to the rest of Niger and other countries as rapidly as the results justify.
Project Healthy Children, Rwanda
Project Overview
Project Healthy Children was awarded $100,000 over one year to address the technical assistance and financial support gaps needed to improve the nutritional quality of local partner SOSOMA Industry’s fortified supplementary food with vitamins and minerals such as iron, vitamin A, B vitamins and zinc. This project will provide the necessary assistance for the facility and product to meet national and international quality standards and the guidance to ensure the product will provide the appropriate calories and micronutrients to address current deficiencies in children. It will be structured in such a way that after this initial assistance, it will become self-sustained, financed through orders by the Government of Rwanda and non-governmental organizations. Furthermore, learning will be captured and disseminated in order to support the rapid implementation of national fortification policies in Rwanda and serve as a model, which can be replicated in other industries and countries attempting to scale-up for fortification.
PHC estimates that the direct benefit of this project to children who are able to consume the fortified supplementary CSB through purchases by individuals, the Government, and NGOs will reach up to 50,000 undernourished children throughout Rwanda within the next 9-18 months. In addition to improving the nutrition status of these children, the project will have several indirect benefits including demonstration of efficient production and effective governmental quality monitoring providing a model for other industries within Rwanda and governments in countries facing significant issues of micronutrient malnutrition. Used as a model for fortified supplementary food production, this project has the potential to reach approximately 200,000 undernourished children throughout the region in the next 3-5 years. Expanding this model into other regional countries will likely have a dramatic impact on reducing micronutrient malnutrition and provide a long-term solution for producing local, quality fortified supplementary foods.
Overall Goal
The overall goal of the project is to improve the quality and increase the quantity of fortified supplementary food in order to improve the nutritional status of up to 50,000 malnourished children in Rwanda; to support the implementation of national fortification policies, and provide a self-sustaining model for fortification.
Doctors for Global Health, El Salvador
Project Overview
Doctors for Global Health (DGH) was awarded $51,506 for a two year health infrastructure strengthening project in communities in Morazán in northeastern El Salvador. To-date, DGH has assisted these communities in making major improvements in infrastructure, education, and capacity-building, revitalizing the CHW program and constructing the CAIPES health clinic, and culminating in the formation of a local NGO, Asociación de Campesinos para el Desarrollo Humano (CDH). Support from the Izumi Foundation over the next two years will enable the DGH/CDH collaboration to strengthen the primary care and emergency, subspecialty, and diagnostic referral system, improving and saving many lives in this region. The main project activities include updating the medical equipment, medicines, and supplies and supporting health staff in the CAIPES clinic to meet the needs of an increased patient volume; providing continuing education to the community health workers responsible for the clinic; making referrals for patients needing subspecialty, diagnostic or emergency care; creating a functional laboratory to more accurately diagnose basic primary care illnesses; and strengthening a comprehensive environmental health project designed to reduce parasitic and diarrheal infections. People travel from far to access the CAIPES clinic and support for the proposed project will provide critical medical care for marginalized people who have not been well served by the country’s formal health structures.
Overall Goal
The project’s goal is to strengthen the quality of primary care for the impoverished communities of Estancia, Agua Blanca and Guachipilín in northeastern El Salvador.
Massachusetts General Hospital-Family Treatment Fund/ Mbarara University Teaching Hospital, Uganda
Project Overview
The Family Treatment Fund was awarded $25,000 over a two year period to purchase critically needed medications. In response to the distressing level of morbidity and mortality on the MUTH inpatient pediatrics ward, the Family Treatment Fund in Collaboration with Mbarara University Teaching Hospital (MUTH), developed a simple project to obtain critically needed medications as a supplement to the insufficient funds from the Ugandan government. The Rotary Club in Scottsdale, Arizona was the first funder for this project. It worked with the Mbarara Rotary Club and Rotary International to buy routine medications, such as antibiotics, and basic medical supplies for the inpatient ward. This project has served approximately 5,000 children aged 0 to 15 years thus far, from the nine districts surrounding Mbarara, and from nearby refugee camps in Rwanda and the Congo. The most common illnesses have been pneumonia, malaria, meningitis, sepsis, and diarrhea and over 1,000 children would have died without this project. The current project proposes to continue to provide these critically needed medications and supplies to the hospital while working on securing more donations from the Ugandan Ministry of Health to sustain the project over the long term.
Overall Goal
This project aims to prevent the return of inpatient pediatric morbidity and mortality at the Mbarara University Teaching Hospital in southwestern Uganda to the alarmingly high levels seen prior to the initiation of donated medications and basic medical supplies.