IMA Celebrates 50 Years of Saving Lives

 

by Charles Franzen/IMA

1960 – Just 50 years ago.

In 1960 John F. Kennedy hailed the New Frontier. The Belgian Congo gained its independence with the vibrant Patrice Lumumba as its new leader. In 1960 many people still traveled across the Atlantic on ocean liners, choosing the sea over the sky. The Pittsburgh Pirates defeated the New York Yankees in the World Series.

In that same month of October 1960 a small number of Protestant relief and humanitarian agencies signed an agreement which led to the formation of Interchurch Medical Assistance, known today as IMA World Health. Its original mission was quite simply to provide medicines and medical supplies (sourced from pharmaceutical company donations) to mission groups and missionary hospitals and clinics in the ex-Colonial developing world.

What the founders of IMA could not have foreseen, fifty years later, is the size, scope and impact of IMA in 2010. From supplying medicines and supplies, IMA now has offices and major international health programs in Tanzania, the DR Congo, Haiti, Southern Sudan and Kenya, as well as its headquarters in New Windsor, Maryland. From the earliest days with a staff of only five persons, IMA now has nearly 100 staff members, citizens of many countries, spread across the globe.

IMA is now an international leader in strengthening health systems (with wide-ranging efforts across broad swaths of Southern Sudan and DR Congo), integrated treatment of neglected tropical diseases (in Haiti the program is scaling up rapidly to full national coverage) and in the care and counseling to victims of sexual and gender-based violence (in eastern Congo).

In addition, IMA is at the cutting edge of the first large-scale HIV/AIDS care and treatment programs in Africa (as a partner in AIDSRelief in Tanzania) and is leading in scaling-up childhood cancer treatment with innovative diagnostic techniques and therapy. Many thousands have reaped immense benefits from IMA's maternal and child health work in many different countries.

On October 6th at the Newseum in Washington DC IMA's 50 years of service in international health will be celebrated in an event entitled 'Partnership. Health. Haiti. IMA's First 50 Years'. Gary Tuchman, senior reporter at CNN, will be the Master of Ceremonies for a celebration of IMA's partnership with a host of international donors, in-country partners and nongovernmental organizations.

The evening's festivities will begin at 6:30 p.m. and the program will include a number of presentations and awards. Featured speakers include TOMS Shoes representative, Jessica Shortall, Director of Gift Programs, who will announce TOMS' largest ever donation to a single country and organization: 500,000 pairs of shoes will be distributed this autumn in collaboration with the Government of Haiti and IMA-led neglected tropical disease program funded by USAID.

IMA President & CEO, Rick Santos, will speak of his experience surviving the earthquake under the rubble of the Hotel Montana with two colleagues. He will discuss new partnership initiatives to combine resources and efforts to promote better health, water, and sanitation and community development.

IMA staff from country offices and major programs will be in attendance together with partner organizations and representatives of the countries which host IMA projects and programs. This event is made possible by the generous support of Abbott, Becton-Dickinson, Blue Water Media, Johnson & Johnson and Vestergaard-Frandsen.