Now adding to the board:

African Medical & Research Foundation, Inc. (AMREF USA)

AMREF is the largest non-governmental health development organization based in Africa.  AMREF was founded in 1957 as the Flying Doctors of East Africa. Since then, they have been creating simple and cost-effective health solutions that transform the lives of families and communities across Africa. Today, they are the premier Africa-based health development organization with health programs, training, and technical support spanning across more than 30 African countries.

AMREF USA raises critically needed funds for their work in Africa. They also seek to raise public awareness about AMREF’s vital and unique contribution to improving health for Africans by Africans.

In 2005 AMREF was awarded the Gates Award for Global Health in recognition of their major and lasting contribution to the field of global health.  AMREF received the Medical Honors Award from Discovery Health Channel, USA, in 2004, for their extraordinary lifesaving work of nearly 50 years in Africa. The Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize was established to honor a charitable organization that has made extraordinary contributions toward alleviating human suffering, AMREF received this award in 1999.

AMREF headquarters are located in Nairobi, Kenya where AMREF’s priorities, strategies, and financial plans are developed. AMREF has country offices in Kenya, Ethiopia, South Africa, South Sudan, Senegal, Tanzania and Uganda and operations in over 30 countries in Africa. They work with the poor and disadvantaged in rural remote areas as well as urban slums. Although they work with East Africans of all ages they do place a special emphasis on women of reproductive age and children; including orphan and vulnerable children. AMREF’s doctors have performed well over 100,000 major operations and their programs have trained over 500,000 health workers that reach almost 60 million African people. Additionally, AMREF’s Personal Hygiene and Sanitation Education program, a primary school curriculum designed to reduce water-related illness, reached 74,000 children across 247 schools in Kenya. 30,000 Ethiopians now have access to clean water and sanitation systems and 500,000+ Tanzanians have utilized their voluntary HIV/AIDS counseling and testing sites.

Board meets 3 nights a year midtown.  Financial commitment is significant.  Current board (listed on website, with full bios in most cases) is chaired by a BoardAssist placement, formerly Chief Risk Officer of Caxton, and includes a Sullivan & Cromwell partner, a Saatchi professional, a college professor, and several financial service professionals, among others.