When we arrived in Isiolo at our first partner organization, Pepo La Tumaini, in 2006 we learned that due to tribal conflict and an onslaught of HIV, there was a “minus generation” of people 18-45 years old.  In other words, it was a village made up completely of seniors and children. Within a few years, the village’s oldest members of society would barely be teenagers; they needed tools now to help them survive to adulthood and become a thriving community.

That’s where Mama Hope came in; The community had a vision to build a health clinic that the women named “Mama Tumaini”–Swahili for “Mama Hope.”  The Mama Tumaini Health Clinic and subsequent community projects that have followed address maternal health, nutrition, personal hygiene, disease prevention, and diseases like malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.

Our first ever project, the Tumaini clinic now serves a community of 120,000 people who would otherwise not have healthcare and is the only community-run health clinic within 500 miles.

Proper health care in Sub Saharan Africa continues to be a challenge:

• Of all the regions of the world, Sub-Saharan Africa faces the most serious health problems with the fewest resources (by far).
• 1 of every 5 African children dies before their 5th birthday
• Medical personnel are in short supply. In many countries there is just one doctor for 10,000 to 25,000 people.
• Many African trained medical personnel immigrate at to the USA or Europe to practice medicine.