60 Years of HOPE: A Legacy of Care

People Who Make a Difference

For six decades Project HOPE’s lifesaving work has been an indispensable force in global health, building a unique legacy and training successive generations of doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers in developing nations that lack advanced infrastructure. Our driving ambition has been to place power in the hands of local health care workers to save lives across the globe.

Our new visual identity represents the personal connection of hands that help – the hands of partners like you. Over the years, the support of individuals has powered our capacity to train and equip over 1 million health care workers around the globe.

For decades, the image of the S.S. HOPE – the world’s first peacetime hospital ship – was an integral feature of our logo. We are proud of our unique and extraordinary past, and while the ship was retired in 1974, we kept its silhouette as our cherished emblem for decades beyond because it still symbolized the HOPE it gave to people who watched it sail over the horizon.

As we enter our seventh decade, we remain committed to transforming lives and uplifting communities by empowering health care workers to expertly implement and teach innovative lifesaving solutions, in times of need and into the future.

Looking Back

Our history has seen many transitions since 1958 – the year Dr. William B. Walsh worked with President Dwight Eisenhower to acquire a retired Navy hospital ship.

The S.S. HOPE first set sail in 1960. Throughout the 1960s, we continued to use the ship as the vehicle for our humanitarian journeys, training local health professionals and providing medical care to people in need around the globe.

By the mid-1970s, the ship had made its last voyage, and Project HOPE shifted to land-based programs. We were the only U.S. private volunteer organization to work behind the Iron Curtain, where we delivered health services that improved the lives of children in Poland.

The 1980s ushered in HOPE’s maternal and child health programs across Latin America, which is still one of our global health program priorities.

The HIV/AIDS crisis gave new importance to our determination to combat infectious diseases during the 1990s. It was during this decade that we also established a new state-of-the-art children’s hospital in Shanghai and offered medical relief assistance to those ravaged by war in Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia.

The beginning of this century has challenged all our program priorities like never before, and our work remains incredibly relevant. As we look to build a world where everyone can access the health care they need, we focus on empowering health care workers to save more lives through the core areas in maternal, neonatal and child health; infectious diseases; noncommunicable diseases; and humanitarian and health crises.

Our 60 years of work have brought HOPE and healing to tens of millions of people in more than 100 countries, trained one million health care workers and provided more than $3 billion worth of medicines and supplies. And all of this is possible because of the support of partners and caring individuals who power our work.

Watch our Video: The History of HOPE

 

Onward

Our new visual identity honors our past, and it also reflects how we work today, matching our pioneering ambition for a bright future ahead and representing what has always been at the very center of our work: the personal connection between a human being who needs care and another who can provide it.

Learn more about our new brand here. 

You provide HOPE.

Together, we are responding to critical, far-reaching medical needs. Together, we are providing long-term solutions through health worker training that facilitates sustainability in impoverished and at-risk countries. Together, we are changing and saving the lives of the world’s most vulnerable populations.

Thank you for providing lifesaving HOPE.