Mercy Ships aims to leave the host country better equipped with the training, tools and infrastructure necessary to care for their own.
Many health workers in developing countries lack adequate facilities to serve their communities. Often, medical administrators with limited resources have to choose between building more medically adequate facilities or maintaining current ones in order to have sufficient resources to retain their healthcare workers.
Naves de Esperanza therefore collaborates with local healthcare partners, providing construction and renovation services that improve local healthcare resources.
Our staff manages renovation projects in our host nations, using local construction equipment. Many of the renovations performed are for necessary structures, such as dental and ophthalmology facilities that will be used during the field service of Naves de Esperanza. Renovations are often provided for our future HOPE center facilities to ensure that our patients have a safe and clean area to recover from surgery. After our hospital ships leave, the newly renovated buildings are returned to the country’s Ministry of Health for continued use. In this sense, the renovations address the immediate needs of Naves de Esperanza, as well as the long-term needs for structural improvements in the countries we serve.
When necessary and appropriate, Naves de Esperanza will undertake renovations at local hospitals to improve the capacity and quality of surgical care. These renewals will be carried out in line with the PUMP (or Partner Unit Mentoring Program) model for team building.
Renovations could include:
- Operating room renovations
- Improved power supply
- Repair of water and septic systems
- Improvement of access roads and trails
For change to be sustainable, it must be based on a change in the mentality of the community itself. As an extension of our health care work, Naves de Esperanza conducts development activities to promote health and lifestyle improvement for entire communities.
Why does a hospital ship have an agricultural program? Because we not only want to provide free surgeries to people in urgent need, but we also want to improve general health in the countries where we work in the medium and long term. One of the main factors in the prevention of many diseases is nutrition, which is why it is part of our preventive medicine program.
Our farming course trains local people to teach ecological and sustainable farming methods that produce up to 5 times more harvest, at a lower cost, compared to other commonly used methods. They are also taught business planning and food handling techniques. Recently 25 scholarship holders in the Congo have completed the course that allows them to support their families and at the same time teach their friends, neighbors and even other villages how to use these same techniques.
Thank you for your consideration in supporting Mercy Ships. The most effective way to contribute on a personal level is with a monthly donation. When we donate a monthly amount, we don’t notice much of a difference, but at the end of the year it becomes an amount that can really make an impact in the life of a person in need.