This year has been an incredibly successful year for H4H, starting with our second mission to the Philippines, then our sold out ‘Symphony for Smiles’ concert with Notes of Compassion, and culminating in our seventh surgical mission to Guatemala.

Our concert was an amazing event, not only was it sold out, but we continue to receive donations and the funds raised have far exceeded our original goal of $50,000.00. The board wishes to thank the organizing committee chaired by Don Fitzpatrick, and all of you who worked so hard to sell so many tickets.

Health for Humanity was formed with the broad purpose of improving health in developing countries. In the early years the surgical missions were our focus and through these missions we established our credibility and began partnering with local non-governmental organizations (NGO). Recently we have begun supporting several of our Guatemalan NGO partners in other health and educational initiatives. The increase in revenue this year, from the concert and our other fund raising efforts, gives us the opportunity to expand our activities. While the surgical missions will remain an important part of H4H activities, and we are committed to expanding the surgical program, we intend to increase our support of local organizations that work in public health and education and target vulnerable populations.

You can see on our recently added Facebook photos the need in the rural villages, and the difference such simple items as water filters and efficient wood burning stoves can make. Nutrition and education of children, especially girls, are two important determinants in the development of healthy populations and H4H will be providing scholarships through Vamos Adalante  and supporting their nutrition programs for children. Economic development is another major determinant of health, and we will be looking into microloans, particularly in the field of food security for the people living in rural villages.

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), particularly the eradication of extreme poverty and hunger, cannot be achieved if questions of population and reproductive health are not squarely addressed. There is now consensus that advancing women's rights, in general, and reproductive rights, in particular, is a necessary precondition for halving the number of people living in poverty and underpins success in achieving all the other goals. Another MDG is to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS and this is very closely linked to advancing women’s reproductive rights. With this in mind H4H is working with Proyecto Payaso  to apply for a Voluntary Sector Fund (VSF) Grant from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) to support the development of a diploma program for health educators in the field of HIV prevention and women’s reproductive health.

As discussed above MDG 6 is to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS. Because we believe that grassroots initiatives can complement governmental and major international organization public health initiatives, in the coming year H4H will be supporting the Rwanda Project. In December of 2008, H4H member David Patrick and colleagues travelled to Rwanda.  The group consulted widely with local Ministry of Health, NGOs and focus groups around HIV prevention and also provided demonstration of state of the art approaches to male circumcision (MC).  MC has been shown to reduce transmission of HIV from women to men by over 50% and is the first one-time intervention with the potential to reduce HIV risk for the entire population over time.  Following the visit, the Rwandan Ministry of Health announced its policy of integrating MC into its HIV prevention programming, focusing on neonatal circumcision.    The group is now consulting with colleagues in Rwanda about the best ways to assist with training health care workers to offer relevant procedures and is working with H4H toward sustainable funding for the initiative.

We thank all of our volunteers and friends, donors, and sponsors for their contributions in 2009 and we hope you will continue to support our goal of improving health for those in need in the developing world in 2010.

Wishing you all the best for 2010

The Board, H4H