The Abundance Foundation is improving global health by treating and preventing disease through medical education and health system strengthening. But health is more than just the absence of disease. To build resilient communities, the Abundance Foundation is working to create coalitions between partners that build healthy eco-systems and develop the conditions for sustainability. Our projects partner with groups committed to training doctors, nurses, and community health workers to increase access to quality care. We recognize that it is essential to collaborate with local ministries of health and international NGOs, and it is equally important to work hand-in-hand with grassroots groups committed to establishing long-term sustainability and resilience.
Abundance Project for Global health is an innovative partnership between the Abundance Foundation, Harvard Medical School, Partners In Health and Global Health Delivery to empower local health workers in Haiti and Rwanda. Combining the on-the-ground expertise of Partners In Health with the multidisciplinary clinical and scholarly resources of Harvard Medical School’s Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, the Abundance Project for Global Health will create empirically based delivery strategies to improve health equity in two of the world’s hardest hit locales, Haiti and Rwanda. The Project is led by Abundance Partners Louise Ivers, M.D. MPH., Senior Health and Policy Advisor for Partners In Health in Haiti and Corrado Cancedda, M.D. PhD., Medical Education Director for Partners In Health in Rwanda.
Abundance Foundation collaborates with Partners In Health and Harvard Medical School to create a new Family Medicine Residency training program at Hospital St. Nicholas in St. Marc, Haiti. The Project will build capacity and improve physician quality and coverage in the Lower Artibonite area of Haiti by developing physicians, nurses and nurse auxiliaries who are well-trained in family medicine. The Abundance Project for Global Health funds the visiting faculty from Harvard Medical School. Other funding is provided, in part, by the Clinton-Bush Haiti fund.
The goals for the first three years of the program are:
- 100 nurses and 35-70 auxiliary nurses will be trained per year
- 6 physicians per year will begin a three year family medicine residency training program
- The current staffing model provides 4 physicians and 6 nurses per 24 hours. The goal of the program is to increase the staffing to 10 physicians and 20 nurses per 24 hours.
The Abundance Foundation partnered with the Global Pediatric Alliance to builds the capacity of local midwives and strengthens the critical role they play in maternal and child healthcare. The program serves rural and remote regions in Chiapas, Mexico and Guatemala suffering from lack of potable water, hunger and lack of access to state health care, which contributes to high infant and maternal mortality rates. With the support of the Abundance Foundation, GPA hirde a new Program Co-Director who will expand its relationships with local midwife groups, improve GPA’s ability to deploy Grassroots Health Partnership Grants and technical assistance to community-based health projects, and increase GPA’s ability to evaluate the report on the impact of its programs.
The Abundance Project for Global Health supports the expansion of Global Health Delivery Online (GHDonline.org) to ensure that essential knowledge can reach clinicians where they need it. Abundance Fellows and Scholars participate in the Clinical Exchange community, a secured platform that provides case and specialist consultations between clinicians in Rwanda, Haiti, and at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. The first site for the planned expansion of the Clinical Exchange community is Hospital St. Nicholas in St. Marc, where many Partners In Health clinicians, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, are serving the communities that were at the epicenter of the cholera outbreak. Hospital St. Nicholas in St. Marc is also the site for the Haitian medical residency and nurse training program listed above.
To highlight the central role of local practitioners in solving the most challenging health crises, the Abundance Foundation produced a film, Haiti’s Heroes, which debuted Sept. 20, 2010 at the Clinton Global Initiative annual summit. The film, tells the story of Dr. Dubique Kobel, who runs a PIH clinic in Parc Jean-Marie Vincent, a large settlement in which over 50,000 earthquake survivors continue to live. The Ciné Institute, Haiti’s only film school, co-produced the film, and 100% of the funds raised as a result of the film will go to train and support the Haitian health staff of Partners In Health including doctors, nurses, social workers and community health workers.
The worst drought in 60 years threatens an already struggling people in Somalia and its neighboring countries in the parched Horn of Africa. Man-made problems like rising food prices, a crippled economy, and a lack of central government have only heightened the devastating effects of this natural disaster.
The Abundance Foundation partners with the FEED Foundation to raise awareness and funds to address the drought and food crisis in East Africa resulting from the worst drought in 60 years, a crippled economy and the impacts of war and mass migration. The Abundance Foundation granted $50,000 and pledged an additional $50,000 as a 1:1 challenge grant for the FEED Africa Emergency Fund. The FEED Africa Emergency Fund supports organizations like UNICEF and the World Food Programme that are providing emergency food and critical services to the more than ten million children and families who urgently need aid. With the Abundance Foundation’s support coupled with guidance from the American Jewish World Service, effective grassroots organizations that are providing emergency nutrition and working for long-term food security will receive at least 1/3 of the funding. 100% of all funds raised will go to organizations that are working on the ground.
The Abundance Foundation believes that art has the power to illuminate social justice issues, make visible the invisible and permit the deepest expression of the personal effects of injustice, war, and disaster. Art is essential for personal growth, development and self-expression in children and youth. Our projects support the creation of multiple avenues for showcasing the transformative power of art.
The Abundance Foundation partners with Dave Egger’s 826 Valencia and 826 National to expand their capacity to improve student literacy skills and creativity beyond its eight writing and tutoring centers, currently located in: San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, Boston, Ann Arbor and Washington, D.C.
The Abundance Foundation partners with 826 Valencia and 826 National to launch it’s Clinton Global Initiative commitment to open 6 new sites/cities in the next 5 years which will increase the number of students it serves annually from 25,000 to 40,000.
Ciné Institute is Haiti’s only film school, provides Haitian youth with life changing training and employment opportunities in commercial film production. Haiti’s Heroes was produced in collaboration with the students and staff of the Institute.
Zach Niles is an accomplished documentary filmmaker & music producer, who directed Sierra Leone's Refugee All-Stars. He has worked in Haiti since early 2010, when he first did work with Ciné Institute in Jacmel). The Abundance Foundation is working with Zach to produce a film featuring Haitian musicians, called Lakou Mizik, which is a beautiful exploration of Haitian culture & resilience through the music & stories of local artists. He has edited a video, Peze Kafe, to give a preview of the music the project will be highlighting:
The Abundance Foundation partnered with Voice of Witness to offer “Amplifying Unheard Voices: The Power of Story,” a 4-day oral history training for educators from Grade 8 through college. Participants engaged in an interactive process that introduced the skills, ethics and social significance of creating oral history and enabled them to empower their students to create their own oral history projects. Voice of Witness was founded by Dave Eggers, founder of 826 Valencia, and physician/human rights scholar Lola Vollen.
The Abundance Foundation partnered with United Roots to help establish the first arts and multimedia center dedicated to both ecological awareness, as well as artistic and professional development for youth at the margins in Oakland and the greater San Francisco Bay Area. The Center is dedicated to harnessing the power of art and creative expression to promote healing, personal and community empowerment, and a pathway out of a life of violence and jail. The Center provides programs in music, video, theater, dance, visual arts, leadership, eco-arts, and healing arts. By working in a coalition with several non-profit partners to offer media arts and green job readiness training with wraparound services, the Center prepares youth for jobs in the entertainment or green industries.
The Abundance Foundation is partnering with YBCA to expand their efforts to engage diverse Bay Area communities in civic dialogue, exploring the connections between art and social justice; and to develop YBCA’s leadership role in The Africa Contemporary Arts Consortium, a landmark program designed to initiate, develop, and sustain a dynamic exchange of arts and ideas between artists, arts organizations and public communities through the U.S. and the African continent. YBCA presents contemporary art from the San Francisco Bay Area and around the world that reflects the profound issues and ideas of our time, expands the boundaries of artistic practice, and celebrates the diversity of human experience and expression.
Women and youth are disproportionately impacted by war, natural disasters, economic disadvantage and violence. By partnering with organizations who focus on direct assistance to women and youth, the Abundance Foundation leverages the impact of its support.
The Abundance Foundation partnered with the Haiti Adolescent Girls Network to launch a nationwide program of Girls’ Groups in areas affected by the earthquake as well as communities that are the destinations of out-migration. These regular meetings will serve as social platforms through which to connect girls to age-appropriate skills training and services such as primary and reproductive health care, financial literacy, and psycho-social support. Girls’ Groups have a powerful protective effect: they help ignite friendships, connect young girls with older mentors, foster a sense of belonging and solidarity, and give girls a place to turn in times of trouble.
The epidemic of gender-based violence in Haiti is a result of lack of security, lack of consequences, and the limited involvement of women in post-earthquake decision-making. The Abundance Foundation partnered with Digital Democracy to provide the technology to empower women to design and implement responses to gender-based violence through data gathering, providing testimony and witness, and creating call-centers and clinics where women can access services. Digital Democracy is building a systemic approach to prevent rape in Haiti.
Fonkoze is Haiti’s “alternative bank for the poor, working to promote democracy in Haiti through economic development. The Abundance Foundation has partnered with American Jewish World Service and Fonkoze in a program to rebuild homes for earthquake victims in the hard-hit region of Kabare. Fonkoze will repair homes that are structurally sound and rebuild those with irreparable damage, seeking to ensure that they are hurricane, rain and earthquake resistant.
Fonkoze provides loans and micro-credit all-female membership for home rebuilding and micro-enterprise development, and a network of Solidarity Centers which provide the long-term support necessary for success.
Abundance Partner Dr. Louise Ivers works to train women to act as violence-reduction agents in the largest internally displaced persons camp in Haiti, Parc Jean Marie Vincent, which was the site of the film Haiti’s Heroes. The violence-reduction agents regularly visit women in the camp and raise awareness about gender-based violence and rape and counsel the women on how to avoid violent situations. They also connect the women who have experienced gender-based violence with resources for medical care and psychological support. Abundance Foundation will fund the monitoring and evaluation component of this program.
