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Posts Tagged ‘HIV/AIDS’

replyforall spotlight on: Partners in Health

Monday, February 8th, 2010

hi there, everyone!

we’re excited to kick-off the 1st of a new series in which we feature one of our partner organizations each month. quickly skim it to learn a bit more about our partners’ great work!

we kick off with our non-profit partner Partners in Health. they’ve been working in Haiti for over two decades.

What is the mission of your organization?
Partners In Health (PIH) works in 12 countries to deliver quality health care to people and communities devastated by joint burdens of poverty and disease. PIHs work has three goals: to care for patients, to alleviate the root causes of disease, and to share lessons learned around the world.

What sets your organization apart from other groups in a similar field?
First, while our health centers and hospitals provide a full range of medical care, we take a comprehensive view of health, which includes programs that address potable water, nutrition, housing, and education. Second, we invest in both the public health infrastructure by accompanying Ministries of Health in their activities, and in the local workforce by relying on paid and trained community health workers in the countries where we work. Lastly, PIH stands out because of our extremely low overhead rate: 94% of every dollar raised goes directly to our programs around the world.

What’s the context for PIH’s presence in Haiti?

For more than 20 years, PIH has been providing vital health care services in Haitis Central Plateau and Artibonite Valley. Working alongside the Ministry of Health to serve a catchment area of 1.2 million people, PIH has become one of the largest health care providers in the country. PIH already had more than 100 doctors, 600 nurses, and a total of 4,000 employees on the ground in Haiti working from 12 existing PIH medical facilities in Haiti before the earthquake struck.

In what new ways have you reached out to supporters in the last year?
We have been working extensively with our supporters to help them form Communities of Concern, supporter-driven groups that raise awareness and funds for PIHs work around the world. We have also released online tools that allow our supporters to initiate personalized fundraising campaigns, connect with other advocates and PIH supporters, and communicate with PIH staff. Learn more at http://act.pih.org.

Aside from donations, what is the one thing that supporters can do to support your organization’s work?
Stay informed and raise awareness:

· Friend us on Facebook

· Follow us on Twitter

· Join our mailing list

stay tuned next month for our next profile! email us if you have any questions to include for any of our partner orgs.

thanks for your continued support,

the replyforall team

Tags: Haiti, Health care, HIV/AIDS, Partners in Health, provide clean water, Replyforall
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Supporting your cause during the holidays (or any day)

Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009

While you’re doing last minute shopping, or thinking of gift ideas for a birthday, anniversary, or graduation, consider these ideas connected to replyforall’s eight causes.

Find a cure for cancer. This year, Obama requested more than $6 billion in cancer research, with a “multiyear” plan to double its funding. That means if you supported Obama in the last election, you’re supporting this cause already! Luckily, there are many opportunities to support cancer research during the holidays, like sending cards from young artists. The Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation sells cards for the holiday season, the proceeds directly benefiting pediatric cancer research. The best part? Young patients design the cards (their info is on the back), lending a hand to future patients suffering from cancer. Turns out they’re super cute, too.

Stop global AIDS. In 2007, the estimated number of people in the US living with HIV/AIDS was 557,902 people, including 4,891 children. In the world, that number jumps to 33.4 million according to 2008 estimates, with 2.1 million children worldwide suffering from HIV/AIDS. Ending global AIDS starts at home, and it starts with you. This year, we think the best way to support this cause is to get tested and encourage others to do so. For a list of HIV test centers in the US, you can search here by location. Of course, you can also support nonprofits that provide HIV testing and treatment with everything from postage stamps to t-shirts to coffee mugs. That can make a great gift. And not just for the one who gets the coffee mug.

Defend animal rights. So this idea is one of my personal favorites because it involves loved ones and food. One of the best ways to defend animal rights during the holidays is to commit to what I like to call “guilt-free” eating. Making the effort to cook a vegan meal– even if it’s just one time– gives you the opportunity to make conscious decisions about where your food comes from and what activities you support (like animal cruelty) when buy and eat that food. There are some awesome ideas for vegan cooking at Fat-free Vegan Kitchen, including cookies, cakes, and green bean casserole. So heat up that oven, invite over your closest friends, and have a guilt-free holiday party! Other ideas on how to support animal rights can be found at ASPCA’s site.

Protect children’s rights. Human trafficking is one of the fastest growing criminal industries in the world, with profits estimated by the UN around $7 billion a year. This holiday, make sure none of your money goes to support this slave trade by checking out the list of goods made with slave labor, released by the US Department of Labor. You can also find more information and petitions to sign around this topic at Change.org, including the “8 ways to shed light on human trafficking this Hanukkah.”

Fight global warming. There are plenty of ways to “go green” this Christmas, but I think the best way is to find alternatives to gift-giving altogether. Considering the waste of producing products, from the carbon emissions it takes to run the factories to the trash that ends up in our landfills, it seems the best way to fight global warming is to take a serious look at why we think we need more stuff. But, if foregoing gifts puts a damper on your holiday, you can still be earth-friendly by making gifts by hand, buying from organic and carbon neutral companies, and wrapping them in recycled newspaper. Also, check out National Geographic’s list on how to have a green Christmas.

Provide clean water. replyforall’s nonprofit sponsor, Engineers Without Borders, has teamed up with Google, Inc. to give your holiday donation an extra punch. Double the punch, actually. From now until January 15, 2010, your donation to Engineers Without Borders will be matched by Google, doubling your investment in clean water! Your donation can fund sustainable engineering projects (one of over 350 currently in place) done by EWB in conjunction with local communities and NGOs.

End world poverty. There are plenty of ways to end world poverty this holiday season, and in the spirit of giving gifts, the best way to do so is making sure your gifts provide living wages to those who make them. You can find fair-trade gift ideas at the TransFair USA blog, and donating to micro-finance nonprofits provides funding necessary for potential business owners around the world to start up their companies. While micro-financing has recently turned scam-like for commercial profiteers like large banks, you can still provide loans by giving to nonprofits like Kiva, which has a repayment rate of over 98% and works with multiple credit unions in the area. And once your loan has been repaid, you can loan it out again, or take the money back.

Support education. Our nonprofit partner, DonorsChoose.org, gives donations to specific classrooms with specific needs. Just as the name suggests, the donor chooses which project to support– for the holidays, you can give the DonorsChoose.org GivingCard, which allows the recipient to pick their favorite project. Or, if you have a good idea of what that recipient loves, you can give for them– musical instruments in honor of your guitar-playing dad, sporting equipment for your basketball-loving best friend. Best part comes when your honoree hears back from the classroom!

We hope these can give you some last-minute ideas for the holidays, or something to come back to when a special someone’s birthday rolls around. If you have other ideas on how to support a cause, leave a comment for others to read with the cause in the subject line. As always, you can give to your favorite cause by adding the replyforall signature to your emails. Free to you, but generating donations every time you hit SEND.

Fight the Good Fight,

Johanna Hudgens

start doing something about AIDS in Malawi

Friday, June 19th, 2009

With more than 40 million people worldwide estimated to be living with HIV, and nearly two-thirds of those living in sub-Saharan Africa, Partners In Health (PIH) began a new project in late January 2007 to provide comprehensive, community-based health care to the community of Neno, Malawi.

The Clinton-Hunter Development Initiative (CHDI) targeted Malawi, one of the most densely populated countries in Africa, as an area that desperately needed a rural health project to combat the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the region. To replicate successful rural initiatives in primary health care, PIH partnered with Malawi-based organization Abwenzi Pa Za Umoyo (APZU), which serves over 100,000 people in Malawi.

Building a Hospital in Neno, Malawi Work for APZU began at the district hospital in Neno, and aside from renovating old (and building new) hospitals, PIH began training nurses to provide antiretroviral therapy for those who tested HIV-positive. But PIH knows that HIV/AIDS doesnt affect people except in the context of other conditions, and therefore works in tandem with educating communities on HIV/AIDS prevention, and addressing socio-economic conditions that exacerbate disease such as access to water.

The supervisor of APZUs antiretroviral treatment clinic, Samson Njolomole, has personally experienced the impact such a program can have. HIV-positive himself, Mr. Njolomole was encouraged to go to the APZU clinic in Neno, and started ART. Now feeling healthy and strong, Mr. Njolomole understands the possibility of living well, even with HIV.

APZU now serves 2,200 people with antiretroviral therapy, but Mr. Njolomole is working to expand APZUs program with an outreach campaign. The organization hopes to travel from village to village in the Neno district and spread awareness of HIV, the importance of testing, and the success of ART. Though HIV/AIDS is often stigmatized, even in the United States, Mr. Njolomole hits the nail on the head when he asserts that the question is not how someone got the disease, but what we are doing about it.

So what can we do about it? Well, for one, adding replyforalls stop global AIDS signature to your email. You can add a rotating fact about HIV/AIDS to spread awareness, and link to the Partners in Health website to direct your circle of contacts to their work with APZU, and other HIV/AIDS initiatives around the globe. And you can track your impact with the stop global AIDS signature to see how youve provided HIV testing and education, just by sending emails.

We have to start now, Mr. Njolomole urges. Signing up at replyforall is a simple first step. So take that first step, and invite your friends to help with this project in Malawi. Activism doesnt always mean protests and petitionsits driving support for your cause in everyday life.

Fight the Good Fight,
Johanna Hudgens