Global Healing recently attended the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) American Schools and Hospitals Abroad (ASHA) 2020 Partners Meeting in Washington, DC. Our partnership with USAID/ASHA stems from the collective work we are doing with them, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and Jo Ann Medical Center in Tbilisi, Georgia, to build the first Pediatric Oncology/Hematology Care Center in the country. Through these partnerships, we are making childhood cancer a treatable disease in Georgia.
The theme of this year’s conference was “Financing Self-Reliance.” During the event, there were presentations from various agencies within USAID, such as the US International Development
Finance Corporations (DFC), Global Development Alliance (GDA), Center for Faith and Opportunity Initiative (CFOI) and the New Partnership Initiative (NPI). These agencies work with ASHA to find financial self-reliance through private, public, and nonprofit collaboration.
An excellent example of our ongoing work to meet our collective goal of financing self-reliance, as well as improving access to quality pediatric care, has been the establishment of the Pediatric Oncology/Hematology Center in Tbilisi. Since Georgia’s independence in 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the country was without much of the medical care that we take for granted in North America. Without access to medical care, families were often forced to sell all of their belongings, borrow money, and use any resources available to travel to surrounding countries for health care. This heartbreaking scenario has been a reality for many families in Georgia. It is why Global Healing partnered with USAID and St. Jude’s to make Georgian medical care accessible and of the highest quality for some of the country’s most vulnerable patients. Find out more about our project HERE.
The conference provided an opportunity for networking with other USAID/ASHA partners working in other geographic areas with similar objectives of improving education and global health. Global Healing was excited to learn from these partners and discover potential new areas of collaboration in our shared missions.
With the help of our colleagues and advocates around the world, we continue to work towards our vision of a world where all children have access to quality health care.