9 Ways You Made A Difference This Year
Thanks to your support, Project HOPE reached nearly 1 million people this year. Here are just a few of the ways you helped us build a healthier world.
What does hope look like?
It’s a family with HIV receiving the support they need to stay the course of treatment. It’s a young patient receiving the lifesaving medication she depends on. It’s a midwife learning the training that will one day save a newborn’s life.
This is how we’ve transformed lives for more than 60 years: by partnering hand-in-hand with communities, health care workers, and public health systems to ensure sustainable change. And this year was no exception. Together, we helped nearly 1 million people around the world.
We couldn’t do our work without your support. Here are nine ways you helped us transform lives and communities around the world this year.
1. You helped us deliver 11 million pieces of PPE and train 83,000 health care workers to treat COVID-19.
When the world’s health care workers needed support, you answered the call. Project HOPE’s global response to COVID-19 has now reached over 150 countries around the world.
To date, we have delivered over 11 million pieces of PPE, including 7.4 million surgical masks, 1.2 million respirator masks, 1.1 million gowns and lab coats, and 1.2 million pairs of exam gloves. We have also trained over 83,000 frontline personnel to recognize and treat the virus in their communities.
2. You helped us respond when earthquakes shook Puerto Rico, Hurricane Laura struck the Gulf Coast, and a massive explosion rocked Beirut.
In the wake of emergency, you helped deploy Project HOPE staff and volunteers to deliver medical relief where it was needed most. Overall, Project HOPE reached 206,000 people with disaster response and humanitarian assistance this year.
That response is making a difference in places where it’s needed most — like in Beirut, where Project HOPE responded to this year’s devastating explosion with vital medicines and medical supplies.
Our ability to show up during times of emergency has never been more important. As crises compound and climate change intensifies, Project HOPE will continue to help families, communities, and health systems around the world recover and rebuild after disaster.
3. You helped us reach 170,000 mothers, newborns, and young children.
Every mother, baby, and child deserves hope for a healthy future. That starts with access to quality care.
This year, our work to improve the health of mothers and babies made a difference for 170,000 mothers, newborns, and young children in places like Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Indonesia.
4. You helped us reach 564,000 people affected by HIV/AIDS.
In Nigeria, Malawi, and beyond, we made progress toward ending the AIDS epidemic, reaching over half a million people with screening, treatment, care, and support. This included 330,000 orphans and children in families made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS.
5. You helped girls in Namibia earn money while protecting their community.
In Namibia, young women in Project HOPE’s DREAMS program saw the pandemic as an opportunity to impact their community for good: They took the skills they learned from Project HOPE to launch their own tailoring business and make a simple tool to slow the spread of the virus: face masks.
At a ceremony attended by the U.S. Ambassador to Namibia, the girls handed over their first batch of masks to be distributed to adolescent safe spaces across the capital. Now, other young women can continue on in the program safely, receiving the support they need to avoid HIV while staying safe from COVID-19.
6. You helped us screen tens of thousands of people for disease.
Ensuring people know their health status is the first step toward a healthier future and is crucial to preventing the spread of infectious disease.
This year we screened or tested over 46,000 people for diseases like TB, HIV, diabetes, and hypertension. We also helped 269,000 people living with disease better manage their health.
7. You helped us deliver mental health support to the front lines of COVID-19.
As millions of health workers face the risk of COVID-19 infection, countless more face a burden that’s harder to diagnose: a damaging toll on their mental health.
With support from the Abbott Fund, Project HOPE is piloting mental health trainings in Indonesia and the Dominican Republic to empower health workers to protect their own well-being. Held in-person and online, trainings cover topics like stress, grief, and trauma and provide tools for building resiliency and addressing mental health.
8. You helped young people in Mexico build a healthier future.
More than one-third of young people in Mexico are overweight or obese — a trend that threatens an entire generation. In Project HOPE’s award-winning Young Health Program, young people like Emiliano and Paloma are making smarter health choices and supporting each other in the fight against non-communicable diseases like diabetes.
More than half of all NCD deaths can be traced back to behaviors that began during the teenage years. But with the right education and support, young people can take control of the choices that determine their health. That’s why Project HOPE is working with AstraZeneca to empower young people in Mexico with the knowledge and skills they need to practice healthier habits while helping to strengthen the health services available to support them.
9. You helped us deploy expert medical volunteers to hard-hit areas across the U.S.
Volunteers are among the many unsung heroes of the pandemic. They’ve also been at the heart of Project HOPE’s work for over 60 years.
Thanks to your support, Project HOPE was able to deploy expert medical volunteers to provide surge staffing and increased COVID-19 testing across the country — from Chicago and Houston to Maryland and Navajo Nation.
We couldn’t do our work without your support. Thank you!
Make a lifesaving gift to support our work now and for the future at projecthope.org/donate.
Are you a health-care or other professional who would like to learn more about volunteering abroad with Project HOPE? Learn more about our volunteer program and join our volunteer roster.
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