2004 Newsletter Articles

Health for Humanity will be hosting a one day Mini Conference on Thursday, December 16, in conjunction with the Baha’i Conference on Social and Economic Development (SED Conference), December 16-19, sponsored by the Rabbani Trust. The HH Conference and the SED Conference will be held together in Orlando, Florida, at the Rosen Centre Hotel, which offers discounted room rates for conference attendees. To learn more about the Conference, click here..

The theme of the 2005 conference will be “Health Development for the 21st Century.” Workshops will focus on trends in health care that impact our program service areas, the increasing awareness and need for moral and ethical foundations of development models, and similar topics at the cutting edge of health development. The successful agenda from 2004 will provide the framework, integrating keynote speakers who are outstanding experts in the field with skill-building workshops to develop HH members into the next generation of health development experts. To learn more about the Conference, click here..

After several years of “dreaming,” volunteers in Albuquerque are now months away from opening their after-school program, Building Bridges. They will be using the Curriculum entitled Full-Circle Learning, developed by the Children’s Enrichment Program in Los Angeles. The Albuquerque Bahá’í Center has generously allowed the use of its building and facilities rent-free. The project now has an executive director/teacher, Dorothy Schwiedergoll, who is ready and able to begin, and there are assistants lined up to work. The Building Bridges Board is in the process of getting the school licensed and taking care of all the many details necessary for a top-notch program. The program is slated to open in October. Enrollment will be ten students with one teacher and one assistant. Although this is a scaled down version of their original proposal, project volunteers feel confident that its success will allow the project to generate the financial support needed for a full-blown program.

A Building Bridges Board member, Curt Schuyler, attended the Annual Health for Humanity Conference in June. From his participation, the Building Bridges Board has been able to revise its vision of the program and associated fundraising. Rather than just viewing the after-school enrichment program as simply a local effort, the Board now views it in the larger context of Health for Humanity -- the first program under the umbrella of the Health for Humanity Albuquerque Network.

Summer - Fall 2004: Building Skills and Sharing Experiences at the 2004 Annual Conference

Some of the participants at the 2004 Annual HH Conference gather for a group photo.

These are some of the comments from attendees at the Annual Health for Humanity Conference held in June. It was a wonderful weekend of skill building, networking, and inspiration for the future of HH. Some highlights of the weekend included: the “wacky auction” which raised over $2000 to help cover conference expenses; Dr. Jim Turpin’s moving stories from his work in Vietnam and the organization he founded, Project Concern; Dr. David Rutstein’s presentation about ways to partner with the US Health Service to implement the HH model for domestic health development; and many conversations and discussions among people who are passionate about service to humanity and committed to bringing about positive change in the world. To learn more about the 2004 Conference and upcoming HH Conferences, click here..

Workshops Offered at the Conference Now Available at HH Online

• Understanding HH’s Unique Model for Health Development
• A Life of Service
• Spiritual Principles of Development
• Developing a Sustainable Project
• Developing Evaluation Tools
• Strategies for HIV/AIDS Projects

At the recent Chicago Bowling & Breakfast Fundraiser, many employees of Cardinal Health were able to multiply their donations to HH through what is known as a “Matching Gift” program generously arranged by Cardinal Health. Many businesses and organizations have programs in place to match the charitable gifts made by their employees. Yours may too. Consult the Personnel Department where you work to find out if your employer has a Matching Gift program.

Through Matching Gift programs, employers match tax-deductible individual contributions made by their employees. Some employers will double or triple the amount of an employee contribution, resulting in an even more significant gift. Often, employers will also match contributions of retirees and board members, as well as contributions from current employees. With increased emphasis on volunteerism, some employers may also make a cash contribution to HH based on volunteer service completed by employees. The HH office will be happy to work with you to complete any documentation requirements needed to qualify for matching gifts or volunteer support from your business.

A young boy eagerly picks a book to take home from the Rx:ABC booth at WestTown Health Clinic.

Project Coordinator, Pat Armbruster, reports a very interesting experience while reading with a young boy from Poland. While reading, both Pat and the boy would point to pictures in a book about haunted houses and the boy would say the Polish word while Pat would say the English word. At one point the pictures were so stimulating that the boy could not hold back and let out a stream of Polish words. In the row behind them a Spanish-speaking boy, who had overheard their interaction, began commenting enthusiastically in Spanish. Pat, who doesn’t understand Spanish or Polish, thoroughly enjoyed listening to their stories. Love of literacy happens in all languages. To read the entire article, click here.

Save the date for Health for Humanity’s Gala Fundraiser, February 26, 2005. The event will offer a fabulous evening of dining and entertainment with a breathtaking view of downtown Chicago from the top floor of the Allerton Hotel on Michigan Avenue. It will also feature a Silent Auction with one-of-a-kind donations from the Chicago area. Tickets will be sold for $150 per plate, and invitations will be sent this winter to Chicago-area donors and supporters. Please let the HH Office know if you would like to be included in the mailing list, or participate in the planning subcommittees currently being formed.

Check for more information as it is announced here.

The Gap is now in a stage of renewal and transformation, after the initial volunteer base could no longer provide the same level of involvement. Through a grant from Health for Humanity, the Gap Project has hired Misha Maynerick, who has experience with similar programs, to begin reenergizing the curriculum and recruiting new students and mentors. Integral to this process is identifying some of the lessons learned over the past few years. Some of these include recognizing that when kids don’t show up, it is important to focus on community outreach. The Gap mentors also spent a lot of energy trying to create their own curriculum when there are excellent resources to draw from. Finally, mentor training needs more attention, especially in dealing with daily challenges such as how to effectively discipline a child. To read the entire article, click here.

The Health for Humanity Chicago Area Bowling Breakfast and Silent Auction was a great success again this year. On Sunday, August 15, over 200 Chicago area supporters gathered at the Brunswick Lanes in Deerfield to share bowling and games, a brunch, and silent auction of goods and services donated by community businesses. The enthusiasm of the group was never in more evidence than it was this year. People were ready to party. To learn more about the event, click here.

The pastel stucco apartments of Rancho Sespe house a village of 100 families and 500 people. It is home to so many children with nowhere to go but outside to play while their parents work in the fields or distant factories all day. Moving to this mostly tidy HUD housing development is a major accomplishment for immigrants who work long and hard to be able to bring their families to finally join them. However, the long tiring days, together with the confused blending of values and stresses, do not always make it an easy place to raise children. Such was the impetus for the violence prevention/community leadership/capacity building project that arose through collaboration with local agencies and Health for Humanity. To read the entire article, click here.

Health for Humanity is a member of the Global Health Council, the world's largest membership alliance dedicated to saving lives by improving health throughout the world. The Global Health Council is trying to "get the word out" to as many people as possible about the various awards administered by the Council, including the Gates Award, so that they may consider as many nominees as possible.

These annual awards serve to honor those who have made a major contribution to the field of global health. Please read the award descriptions here and consider nominating those people and organizations in your life which best fulfill their criteria.

Two important developments over the past year have significantly boosted the level of HH project support and refinement: 1) clarification of project development stages; and 2) project support through seed funding and modest grants. Another very significant step in this process will be the addition of an International Project Officer to the HH staff beginning September 2004. Read the entire article: New Evolutionary Leap for HH Projects.pdf

The Programs Committee has approved the “HH Project Development Stages” to aid in tracking and moving projects toward full-scale implementation. The new stages will be incorporated into the Project Development Guidelines as a means of implementing outcomes-based project assessment. Read the entire article: Programs Committee Providing Oversight for International Projects.pdf

Nowadays if you have an eye problem in Albania, you can get excellent care almost anywhere in the country. Well, you can get excellent care for almost any eye problem – that is -- with the exception of a retinal detachment or other retina problem requiring surgery. Unlike 1991, before the HH project started, Albanians are now rarely referred abroad for treatment except when they need retina surgery. In fact, the whole region, including Kosovo and Macedonia, has no access to quality retina services. For this reason HH representatives have been exploring the potential for developing this capacity in Albania over the past two years. Read the entire article: Final Phase of Albania Eye Project.pdf

The overall goal of the project in Cameroon is to eliminate onchocerciasis [river blindness] as a public health problem in the project zone, with the specific objective of establishing a sustainable system of community-directed treatment with ivermectin (CDTI) within five years. This approach involves an annual cycle of activities, which begin with selecting community distributors and ends with mass treatment of eligible persons, follow-up of cases of adverse reactions, activity review (evaluation) and reporting. In the selections below from their Annual Report, our local partner, BASED, identifies the successes and challenges of their community-directed treatment (CDT), which is an exemplary model for rural health development. This model puts increasing control and responsibility for the program in the hands of the local leadership and, at the same time, builds local capacity to handle health issues and train local health workers. Read the entire article: Onchocerciasis Control in Cameroon_1.pdf

There are about 100 ophthalmologists in all of Mongolia. A group of leading ophthalmologists there has invited HH to participate in implementation of the new Mongolian National Blindness Prevention Plan to raise the standard of eye care throughout the country. As part of HH’s collaboration with local partner ophthalmologists, Dr. Ulzimaa, Dr. Battuya and Dr. Enkhmaa, Dr. Oh was invited to demonstrate the newest techniques in cataract surgery. Read the entire article: web: Mongolia Eye Project Update_1.pdf

Since October 2002, Booz Allen Hamilton has partnered with Health for Humanity to support the Varqa Foundation with the Youth Can Move the World (YCMTW) HIV/AIDS Intervention Project with youth in Guyana, South America. The Booz Allen/Health for Humanity team recently played a significant role in providing key information on youth knowledge, attitudes and behaviors to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Guyana Ministry of Health, Varqa Foundation, and other non-governmental organizations working with HIV/AIDS in Guyana. This information, resulting from analysis of a survey of Guyanese youth, is critical in building programs that address the needs expressed by youth to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and to prevent discrimination against individuals who are HIV positive. Rad the entire article: Partnering for Change in Guyana.pdf

HH member Dr. Alfred Neumann traveled to Hunan Province, Peoples Republic of China, in September 2003, January 2004 and March 2004 upon invitation by the Provincial Health Bureau in Hunan. The request was to expand the sphere of work to help the entire Province in its war against HIV/AIDS. Dr. Neumann visited Hunan to develop a working relationship with key officials, to ascertain some of the dimensions of the HIV/AIDS problem there, and to learn about the plans of Hunan colleagues in the battle against HIV/AIDS and their vision for the partnership with HH and UCLA. Read the entire article: Partnership for HIV-AIDS in Hunan.pdf

On March 8, 2004, the Children’s Neurodevelopmental Rehabilitation Center (CNDRC) of the Second University Hospital opened its doors to patients. The idea for a children’s rehabilitation program at the university was initiated by Dr. Mao Meng, who is now the head of the Second University Hospital. This hospital is the women’s and children’s division of the university and offers a wide range of subspecialty services, including neonatal and pediatric intensive care and pediatric neurology. The building itself is newly constructed and was dedicated last spring. Its original design allowed for inclusion of the rehabilitation center, as the pediatric rehabilitation project has been ongoing for several years now. Read the entire article: Pediatric Rehabilitation Clinic Opens in Chengdu.pdf