Local support for global action: How Ottawa philanthropists can make a difference through HealthBridge

Ottawa Citizen
Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Page F2

By Sian FitzGerald, Executive Director, HealthBridge

Posted with permission from the Ottawa Citizen.

HealthBridge (formerly PATH Canada) is an Ottawa-based non-governmental organization (NGO) that has worked since 1982 in Asia, Africa, and the Americas to improve the health of vulnerable populations around the world, including those at risk of malnutrition, infectious disease (particularly malaria and HIV/AIDS), and emerging epidemics, such as obesity and tobacco-caused diseases. It has a small staff team in Ottawa who support the work of staff in Bangladesh, India, and Vietnam; it also contracts staff and consultants in other countries where it operates on a project basis (such as Brazil and Tanzania).

HealthBridge receives some of the funds needed to implement its programmes from anonymous donations made through the Community Foundation of Ottawa. In doing so, HealthBridge has been able to broaden the understanding of what “funding local initiatives” really means, in the sense that “the world is our community.”

Much has been written over the past few years about the inter-connectedness of communities around the world. By raising local support for global action, HealthBridge has been able to raise awareness within Ottawa’s local philanthropic community about how its support can be used to improve the lives of others in geographically distant communities, while also enabling it to develop and implement projects that combine local expertise on cost-effective development with local funders who have interests that extend to global development issues. This has helped the Ottawa community to improve the global community.

Just as important, this support has often been used to allow HealthBridge to identify critical health gaps in the developing world, explore pioneering research, and work with local partners to bring about significant policy change – activities which major donors are usually reluctant to fund. In other words, funding from the Community Foundation of Ottawa’s donors has helped HealthBridge to be “ahead of the curve,” innovative, and creative in its international work.

For example, funding received through the Community Foundation played a pivotal role in two key aspects of HealthBridge's nutrition programme. In 2003, funding was used to develop the VitANet concept, an idea that integrated two life-saving technologies: Vitamin A Capsules and Insecticide Treated Nets for malaria control. Integrating the two technologies into a single model has allowed them to be delivered to more families in more communities and more cost-effectively. In 2004, Community Foundation funding allowed HealthBridge staff to begin developing an even more integrated health delivery model that it calls "MANA" - malaria, AIDS, nutrition, and agriculture. Through this model, an integrated strategy seeks to address the sociological and biological links between four of the major causes of illness and death in Africa.

“While the entire model has yet to be fully implemented in the way we envision it, parts of it are already in place through Communities of Practice, and the idea continues to drive our thinking and action as we continue to develop and refine the model. We could never have gotten as far as we have, or helped to improve the lives of so many people, without the funding we received through the Community Foundation. We are now seeking the funding we need to deliver the fully integrated intervention in Malawi, Tanzania, and Cameroon.” Peter Berti, Deputy Director/Nutrition Advisor, HealthBridge

Another key example of the impact that Community Foundation funding has had for HealthBridge has been in tobacco control. Before the huge influx of Michael Bloomberg’s philanthropic foundation’s funds into international tobacco control in late 2006, there had been little money available for this work in low-income countries. The development of HealthBridge’s reputation as an international leader in supporting tobacco control at the local level in low-income countries, on the other hand, has been due, in part, to the funding it received through the Community Foundation. This funding allowed it to work directly with partners in low-income countries, providing expertise and training where needed, combined with resources to ensure that what was learned could be put to practical use.

Of particular note has been HealthBridge’s tobacco-control work in Brazil. When HealthBridge first began working there in the early 2000s, few organizations outside of the government were actively working in tobacco control in Brazil. There was one informal “virtual” coalition of NGOs and individuals addressing the issue, but they did so with little coordination and depended heavily on a series of small projects and outside grants to be functional. With Community Foundation funding, HealthBridge was able to support the work of a key tobacco control leader, which in turn led to a series of success stories over the past few years: the ratification of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (an international treaty) by the Brazilian Senate in spite of heavy lobbying from the tobacco industry, the blocking of a major tobacco company’s attempt to be designated as an excellent corporate citizen, the legal incorporation of the formerly virtual network as ACT (Alliance for the Control of Tobacco Use) and its receipt of a significant amount of funds from the Bloomberg Initiative in 2007.  

“In a few words, ACT is becoming an important player in the Brazilian tobacco control scenario; this is itself a big accomplishment in terms of civil society participation in tobacco control policymaking. Once again, this would have never been possible without the trust and support of donors operating through the Community Foundation and HealthBridge.” Paula Johns, Executive Director, ACT

Both of these examples show how local Community Foundations can make a significant positive impact in people’s lives globally. Working with small organizations like HealthBridge allows local donors to partner with local international development expertise and, together, allows our community to have a positive impact on the global community.