"Partnering" with Partners in Health

(Mali Health Organizing Project)

Mali Health is thrilled to announce that we are joining hands with Partners in Health. As a partner project, we are excited to contribute to a growing movement for global health while benefiting from the guidance and expertise of experts in the field.

About Partners in Health

Partners in Health began 25 years ago when Dr.

Paul Farmer (profiled in Mountains Beyond Mountains) and Ophelia Dahl launched a community-based health care project in Haiti. PIH’s founders started with the simple but radical perspective that health is a human right– meaning that healthcare should be free for those who can’t afford it. Today PIH seeks to provide preferential health care for the poor: “At its root, our mission is both medical and moral. It is based on solidarity, rather than charity alone. When a person in Peru, or Siberia, or rural Haiti falls ill, PIH uses all of the means at our disposal to make them well—from pressuring drug manufacturers, to lobbying policy makers, to providing medical care and social services. Whatever it takes. Just as we would do if a member of our own family– or we ourselves– were ill.”

PIH's Butaro Hospital in Rwanda                                  

Despite its presence in 11 countries around the world, PIH is at heart a community-based organization, partnering with local and national governments to provide universal access to primary health care, make healthcare and education free to the poor, and fight poverty. Over 7,000 of PIH’s 13,000 employees are Community Health Workers, who work as trained local residents to provide basic health education and medical care. Like Mali Health, these Health Workers help to break down the many barriers to care for the poor, ranging from transportation costs to lack of information.

What does it mean to be a Partner Project?

A recent PIH Symposium asserted: “The fight for global health has started. And it won’t be won if only one organization like Partners In Health is in the running, without [other organizations] branching off. It will be won by an army of compassionate people who think globally like PIH people.” As a partner project, Mali Health will join six other organizations around the world that are implementing the PIH model of free care for the poor. Through information sharing and collaboration we will work in tandem to expand access to health services across the globe. Most importantly, we will continue to fuel the growing movement to assert health as a human right– a right that by definition each and every human being deserves.