World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not only the absence of disease or illness”. This statement is clearly referred to the health condition of human beings, but if we concentrate on the adjectives that define well-being, we can extend its meaning, identifying a strict relation with the surrounding environment: our own kind, animals and the natural context we share with them. Social environment may be defined as a network of human relations, regulated by the respect of human fundamental rights (housing, food, education, health protection, dignified and fairly remunerated work). The WHO statement has the quality of all statements of principle: their meaning may be broadened, while always being open to the innovations of our time. During the last years a new vision on the theme of global health has been established, named One Health. People's health is intimately linked to the one of animals and environment. Following such perspective, the approach to public healthcare should be interdisciplinary, meaning to make use of professionals in the field of human and animal medicine (doctors and vets) working t...
World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not only the absence of disease or illness”. This statement is clearly referred to the health condition of human beings, but if we concentrate on the adjectives that define well-bein...
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World Friends has worked for the last 15 years in the peripheries, combating poverty and inequality, to guarantee fundamental rights to the local communities. In these first 15 years of activity, we have tried to respond to the main needs through interventions mainly in the social-health and educational sphere.
We are a group of men and women sharing two fundamental ideas:
To transform these ideas into action, in 2001 we established World Friends as a non-profit organisation, based in Rome (Italy) and Nairobi (Kenya).
Transparent and democratic with self-governing rules, World Friends is nonsectarian and nonpartisan.
In keeping with the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the local and international staff of World Friends constantly work and co-operate to overcome social, cultural and economic injustices. Our internal organization is flexible and minimal: this allows us to allocate the maximum of donated funds for the implementation of co-operation interventions, without waste or excessive management costs.
OUR PROJECTS
Important Acknowledgment for the Ruaraka Uhai Neema Hospital >>
World Friends’ strength lies within its group. Doctors, researchers and social workers who have an in-depth knowledge of the African reality, ensuring a high-level professional and technical contribution. Professionality for us is both a vital rule and premise to create community relationships based on mutual respect.
Following our choice to work in the slums of Nairobi, Kenya, we “put ourselves to the test” and developed specific and replicable methods of intervention in other contexts of extreme social disadvantage.
On the outskirts of a metropolis where great wealth and well-being exist, inhabitants of the slums live for the most part with the equivalent of one dollar a day.
For this sector of society, marked by extreme poverty but also by a great vitality, we provide primary and specialist medical care.
We spread information on health education and prevention.
We train groups of young professionals to work in health care, aimed not only at financial reward.
By working with the best local powers, we have developed inside the communities and are able to hand over our projects once they are established.
We are working in Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia following this method of intervention.
“Slum Flowers” is the new World Friends Campaign to protect the right to health of children living in the Nairobi slums, Kenya.
One child in six in the slums dies before reaching the age of five due to poverty and the inaccessibility or poor quality of the few existing health services.
Children are the greatest asset for a community: to protect, nurture and take care of them means cultivating hope for the future of the community. The campaign’s goal is to enable “Slum flowers” to achieve what is the right of every child: to grow.
By supporting “Slum Flowers” you will help World Friends guarantee the running of the new Pediatrics Department of the Ruaraka Uhai Neema Hospital, the hospital centre built by World Friends to provide free medical treatment for the most needy. What is more,you will empower World Friends’ activities for healthcare prevention and treatment within the slums: mobile clinics, rehabilitation programs for children with disabilities, “safe motherhood” programs for girls in schools, support for pregnant mothers.
IIn the Nairobi slums, 10% of children under the age of 15 are disabled and live in conditions of severe marginalization under both social and medical perspectives.For this reason, World Friends launched the program “Rehabilitation and Orthopedic Surgery”. Every year Dr. Melotto, an orthopedic surgeon for WF, makes two surgical missions to Nairobi to carry out the corrective surgery required and to set up the physical rehabilitation needed, with the assistance of a physical therapist from Neema Hospital.
Disabled children in the slums are the last of the last. Disability not only compromises their development, but marginalizes the families where they live and often divides them. With the project “No one excluded” we are taking prevention and treatment of infantile disability to the Nairobi slums. The programme up to now has succeeded in reaching an average of 500 children each year, together with their families, through providing surgery, physiotherapy, and community education for their integration.
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If you agree with our method of co-operation, you can support one or more of our projects through a donation.
You can also support us in other small ways. Offering a part of your time today is a valid way of putting into practice the things you believe in. You could organize a group of friends and support us through events; you could share your experience of World Friends with colleagues or at your sports club.
BANCA POPOLARE ETICA
Amici del Mondo World Friends Onlus
Iban:
IT 74D 05018 03200 0000 1105 4954
Swift code:
CCRTIT2T84A
Payment on Postal Account
Amici del Mondo World Friends Onlus
n. 47882527
Making a regular donation you will help keep our programmes running
For informations: tel. +39 06 830 81500 info@world-friends.org
Amici del Mondo World Friends Onlus
Viale Egeo 137, 00144 Roma, Italia
Tel/fax +39 06 83081500
info@world-friends.org
Ruaraka Uhai Neema Hospital, off Thika Highway
P.O. Box 39433 – 00623. Nairobi, Kenya
Tel. +254 0713 050509. Cel. +254 0735 722237
nairobioffice@worldfriendskenya.org
