International Midwife Assistance (IMA) recognizes the importance of forming partnerships to work most effectively in new environments. With support from local nonprofits such as the Teso AIDS Programme (TAP) and Pilgrim in Soroti, Uganda, and the Aga Khan Development Network in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, IMA is able to connect more deeply to community needs and desires. Partnerships allow delivery of more helpful maternal/child services to women and children.

 

The Teso AIDS Programme (TAP) is an indigenous non-profit and non-denominational charitable NGO working in 10 sub-counties of the Teso District with its main offices located in the Western division of Soroti. TAP's mission is to help deliver compassionate and comprehensive care for people living with HIV/AIDS, and immediate members of their families (children). TAP was initiated in 1991 in response to community need and with the help of religious leaders during the peak of the HIV/AIDS scourge in the district. TAP was instituted with an overall objective of mitigating the challenges arising from HIV/AIDS scourge. The Teso AIDS Programme has served hundreds of people, including AIDS orphans and families affected by the disease since 1991.

 

Pilgrim is a small indigenous Ugandan organization registered by the Government of Uganda as a Christian charity and a non-profit organization. Pilgrim's mission is to restore hope to disadvantaged communities, especially the war- and poverty-afflicted peoples of Uganda and Africa as a whole. The organization is intent on tackling the sum total of factors that have led to total erosion of the God-given dignity, self esteem and self determination of the peoples of Uganda, beginning with the war-affected peoples of Eastern and Northern Uganda. Pilgrim provides food, medicine and trauma counseling to refugees of Uganda's decades-long civil war who live in refugee camps in the northeastern region of Uganda and organizes the rehabilitation/resettlement of refugee families.

 

In Afghanistan, IMA was fortunate to have the support of the Afghanistan Relief Organization (ARO). ARO provided introductions, cultural perspective, logistical support, and generously hosted IMA volunteers at their technical center in Kabul. ARO is a nonpolitical, secular, nonprofit 501(c)(3), humanitarian organization, registered in the United States and in Afghanistan. ARO volunteers are mostly Afghan American and remain deeply connected to Afghanistan, its people and culture. ARO's unending commitment to Afghanistan provided the initial support in Afghanistan that IMA needed to get up and running.

 

IMA also developed a partnership with the Aga Khan Development Network in Bamiyan, Afghanistan. Aga Khan Development Network is a large NGO working in East Africa and Asia. They support and administer the Bamiyan Provincial Hospital and work closely with the Afghan Ministry of Health to develop and realize its programs. In addition, the organization implements the Community Midwife School in Bamiyan. Aga Khan Health Services provided resources and infrastructure that IMA, as a small nonprofit, could not. For instance, Aga Khan Health Services made capital investments into the Bamiyan community such as improvements at the hospital. They hold offices in Kabul and Bamiyan and have vast experience with large public health projects.

 

OUR DONORS

IMA has received generous support from both individuals and foundations. Our major financial support has come from a most amazing individual, Ms. Dale Halton, and from foundations such as The Threshold Foundation and Pajwell Foundation and service groups such as Zonta Foothills Club of Boulder County. Henry Schein has been incredibly generous with medical supplies. Cascade Healthcare Products also donated medical supplies. We strongly encourgage midwives and everyone to patronize the Henry Schein Company and Cascade Healthcare Products, they are tremendously generous businesses. If you would like to contribute to IMA, we welcome your donation of any amount.