Throughout our 36-year history, International Medical Corps has faced some of the toughest challenges imaginable. We’ve worked in conflict zones, helped people who’ve lost everything in terrifying and deadly disasters, and helped to end deadly epidemics — including two Ebola outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of the Congo this year alone. Take a look back at the …
We Are Continuing to Fight COVID-19 Around the World Around the world, we’re continuing to help people in need as we adapt our healthcare and training programs to the demands of COVID-19. Responding in the United States In the United States, we’ve partnered with hospitals, clinics and nursing homes in California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, New …
International Medical Corps is deploying experts to Tanzania, where more than 117,800 Burundian refugees have fled following escalating violence. The simmering conflict in Burundi deteriorated Friday when heavily armed gunmen stormed military installations in the capital city of Bujumbura. Since April, hundreds of people have been killed and more than 200,000 have fled the country …
In late February 2011, 10-month-old Juma was admitted to the pediatric ward of Rumonge hospital. He was not only severely emaciated, but he also had digestive problems that left him unable to excrete waste. His mother was afraid to give him anything to eat because his belly was so swollen. One week into his treatment …
In addition to the breakdown of economic, social, and cultural structures, the 12-year civil conflict in Burundi led to a dramatic increase in gender-based violence (GBV) in the country. Women and girls in Burundi are widely viewed as inferior and often subjected to violence. Some sayings which exhibit the attitudes surrounding females include: Umukobwa ntamwana …
In Gashoho Commune in northern Burundi’s Muyinga Province, agriculture is the main source of income for the local population. A forty-year-old mother, Beatrice, lives on a hill on a small plot of 1600 square feet, which her family uses for both housing and farming. Beatrice manages to grow bananas and other plants behind her single-room …
Before 3-year-old Chantal and her mother, Jacqueline, registered with the International Medical Corps Positive Deviance/Hearth (PDH) model program in northern Burundi, the toddler had been trapped in a cycle of supplementary feeding programs and bouts of malnutrition. Today, Jacqueline is confident that Chantal will never again be malnourished. Born during an acute food shortage in …
I met two young girls in Burundi this week whose personal health crises lie at the core of the challenges International Medical Corps is facing in this country, one that is tiny in size, densely populated and among the 10 poorest in the world. One of these girls was at the beginning of her crisis; …
This is not the Africa in travel brochures with safaris and delicious wine. This is the Africa where heavy loads are carried on undernourished heads, babies on backs and rifles in the hands of teenage boys. Here in the torrential rain, barefoot children hide under banana leaves. The soil runs deep red as if the …