International Midwife Assistance (IMA) recognizes the importance of forming partnerships to work most effectively in new environments. With support from local nonprofits such as 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.

We are proud to annouce our clinic in Uganda, the Teso Safe Motherhood Project, is now an independent non-governmental organization (NGO) registered in Uganda. This accomplishment marks a big step toward creating a long-term, sustainable health project for the desperately poor and marginalized people in the Teso region. IMA works in partnership with the staff at TSMP to provide technical and financial oversight and support. Please visit their new website: www.TESOsmp.org!

Pilgrim is a small 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.

Move on Malaria (MoM) is a malaria control program started by Pilgrim. It was conceived after devastating floods wreaked havoc on north and eastern Uganda in 2007. The project involves Pilgrim, the Ugandan Ministry of Health, Agathos Foundation, Concern Worldwide, and International Midwife Assistance through the Teso Safe Motherhood Project. Malaria is endemic in the region with an average of 550,000 cases annually.* The Katakwi district, an area of great poverty and need for medical care, was chosen to pilot MoM. International Midwife Assistance partnered with Pilgrim to provide 10 local nurses who administered standard childhood vaccinations to 10,759 children ages five and younger in October 2008. IMA plans to continue supporting Pilgrim with Move on Malaria as they return to Katakwi in 2009.

*Information taken from "Move on Malaria," a report by Pilgrim

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.

 

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 supported the Bamiyan Provincial Hospital and worked closely with the Afghan Ministry of Health to develop and realize its programs. The organization implemented the Community Midwife School in Bamiyan. Aga Khan Health Services provided resources and infrastructure that IMA, as a small nonprofit, could not.

Since 1989, the Colorado Haiti Project (CHP) has been working in the Petit Trou de Nippes region of Haiti where some of the poorest of the rural poor subsist with very little access to basic necessities, such as clean water, basic healthcare and elementary education. CHP runs regular mission trips to Petit Trou to help provide for these needs, focusing on education, vocational training, healthcare, nutrition and clean water. This Christian charity, based in Boulder, Colorado, aims to build lives of dignity and self sufficiency for the people of Haiti.

 

OUR DONORS

IMA receives generous support from both individuals and foundations. Our major financial support has come from a most amazing individual, Ms. Dale Halton. Many family foundations, such as the T & J Meyer Family Foundation and the Pajwell Foundation contribute generously. Henry Schein has been incredibly generous with medical supplies, as has Cascade Healthcare Products. We strongly encourage everyone to patronize the Henry Schein Company and Cascade Healthcare Products; they are tremendous charitable businesses. And of course, IMA welcomes your donation of any amount.