Shoulder to Shoulder uses FBB support to provide greater access to medicine

Anna Haas from Shoulder to Shoulder, our second-quarter 2012 poverty & health beneficiary, gave us this report about how they are using the funds contributed by members of Foundation Beyond Belief. Members donated $7,860 to Shoulder to Shoulder last quarter.

I hope I can take a moment of your time to convey the significant impact your donations will make in Shoulder to Shoulder’s communities in rural Honduras.

Many of us who work with Shoulder to Shoulder in the United States have had our own lives changed by spending a week on a Shoulder to Shoulder brigade, helping to provide health and education services to families in critical need.

Yet, Shoulder to Shoulder’s model, from the very beginning, has been to help communities to help themselves. Thus, our traveling volunteers, by themselves, cannot ensure the long-term continuity of care and lasting public health services that are most needed by the 35,000 people we serve each year. 

This is where you come in—and where you are making a difference.

Your donation of $7,860 will ensure that Shoulder to Shoulder’s communities have access to the medications they may need during their visits to our clinics. It will also ensure that our staff members have the resources they need to help these communities build better public health and education infrastructure. With your help, fighting poverty may not be a quick fix; however, it is a fight we will come closer to winning.

In the descriptions that follow, I have set out two projects in particular that our lead team will be focusing on, and that your members’ donations will enable. These projects have significant importance to our organization at present and are among the top priorities set by our executive board in a June 2012 meeting:

• A collaboration between our Director of Pharmacy, Laura Chan from the United States, and our Medical Director, Dr. Ruben Martinez from Honduras, to create efficient and effective disease protocols for chronic disease patients in the communities we serve. Furthermore, they will be considering other methods for making our clinics’ prescription processes more efficient. 
  
  
• Employee professional development led by Bryan Marsalis, our Director of Mission, Human Resources, and Finance. We have seen great growth in our number of employees as we have grown in the past five years to serve thousands more Honduran people. Therefore, Mr. Marsalis will head the lead team’s work on training and development protocols for the expanded staff. 

The families we serve generally live on under one or two dollars a day. By making Shoulder to Shoulder your Poverty and Health beneficiary for the second quarter of 2012, you have helped us begin to break the cycle of poverty for more and more rural Honduran people.

Thank you for all you are doing to help so many people in need. All of us in the Shoulder to Shoulder community are forever grateful.

Anna Haas
Director of Development