Project HOPE (USA)

Project HOPE (Health Opportunities for People Everywhere) is an international health care organization founded in the United States in 1958. Its most visible aspect was the SS "HOPE", the first peacetime hospital ship (converted from the USS "Consolation" (AH-15)). The SS "HOPE" was retired in 1974, after sailing to Indonesia, Vietnam, Peru, Ecuador, Guinea, Nicaragua, Colombia, Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Tunisia, Jamaica, and Brazil. On these voyages doctors, nurses, and technical staff provided medical care and training to people in each country visited. The SS "HOPE" was not replaced, and emphasis switched entirely to land-based operations. Today there are organizations in Germany and the United Kingdom, in addition to the original organization in the United States. Project HOPE helps different developing countries in efforts to eradicate infectious diseases like HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis. They also help educate parents on how to prevent and treat diseases for their children and themselves, and also train health professionals. Project HOPE also sets up village health banks, which give small loans to women so they can improve their health and family's health. The village health banks also educate women on health.

MISSION STATEMENT

Project HOPE works to achieve sustainable advances in health care around the world by implementing health education programs and providing humanitarian assistance in areas of need. Project HOPE is unique among international organizations in that we have always worked across the health spectrum in a wide variety of settings, from the family and community levels to the tertiary care level, training traditional birth attendants and community health volunteers where resources are limited and cardiac surgeons and biomedical engineers where technology is appropriate. Project HOPE addresses infectious diseases, health professional education, women's and children's health, humanitarian assistance, and the need for health systems and facilities.

Project HOPE has programs in the following countries:

Africa

Mozambique

Malawi

Namibia

The Americas

Dominican Republic

Guatemala

Honduras

Mexico

Nicaragua

Peru

Asia and the Middle East

China

Indonesia

Thailand

Egypt

Iraq

Central and Eastern Europe

Bosnia

Czech/Slovak Republics

Estonia

Hungary

Kosovo

Latvia

Republic of Macedonia

Poland

Serbia

Russia and Central Asia

Kazakhstan

Kyrgyzstan

Russia

Tajikistan

Turkmenistan

Ukraine

Uzbekistan

Recent Events

In 2005, when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, HOPE sent volunteer medical response teams to the area, where they provided nursing care to people in need. As of July 2006, HOPE continues to provide aid to the people on the Gulf Coast who were hit by Hurricane Katrina.In the spring of 2006, they helped staff the U.S. Navy hospital ship, known as the Mercy, with volunteer physicians and nurses to South Asia. In early 2008, Project HOPE's Cheif Operations Officer, C. William Fox Jr., BG, USA (Ret.), was injured by an IED in Basra where the organization is assisting in building a new Children's Hospital. [http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/MYSA022208_commander_EN_1a71c511_html20221.html]

External links

* [http://www.projecthope.org Project HOPE web page]

* [http://www.americanhistory.si.edu/hope Project HOPE: Forty Years of American Medicine Abroad]

*Dr. John P. Howe, III - President and CEO of Project HOPE

* [http://www.parade.com/articles/editions/2005/edition_06-12-2005/featured_0 Parade Magazine article]

* [http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm/bay/search.summary/orgid/4367.htm Charity Navigator Profile of Project HOPE]

References