| Lifeline for children in developing countries (continued) By Carol Britton Meyer
Thu, March 20, 2008 Hingham - Timothy Bilodeau, a resident of neighboring Hull, created Medicines for Humanity because he wanted to make a real difference in the world. People often set that as their goal, but Bilodeau is actually doing it. MFH, with strong ties to Hingham and other South Shore communities, offers a lifeline to children in developing countries. (Residents of Hingham, Duxbury, Hanover, Hull, and Sharon serve on the board and as staff members, along with members from European cities such as Geneva, Switzerland, and Grenoble, France, and other regions of the United States.) “There’s no other problem that matches the injustice of innocent children dying from diseases that are simple to treat or prevent,” said Bilodeau, who serves as executive director. Bilodeau’s wife, Cathy, teaches for the South Shore Collaborative, which has classrooms in several South Shore towns. She currently teaches a classroom of autistic children at their Norwell location. This Rockland-based non-profit organization helps replace the cycle of death and despair with one of life and hope by providing reliable healthcare providers in impoverished communities in Africa, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, and Central and South America with critically needed basic medicines. MFH is able to purchase medicines from European sources and suppliers at about five percent of wholesale prices. MFH also helps its partners to implement effective healthcare initiatives. More partnerships with developing countries are in the works. “It’s one person, community, and site at a time,” Bilodeau said. “Twenty thousand children die each day because they lack basic healthcare and medicines,” said Hingham resident Richard Weisberg, MFH’s director of development. “As frustrating as it is that we can help only about 1 percent of those children, we do know the names of the people we’re helping in these communities. Our partners are our heroes. Day after day they’re in the trenches in unbelievable conditions making magic happen as they improve healthcare for women and children.” “Dr. Damian Javier (known as “Dr. Tony”), who serves 32 bateye communities (little villages set among the sugar cane fields) in the Dominican Republic, is one example of this dedication to helping children, even under difficult conditions. “These people are the equivalent of modern-day slaves,” Weisberg said. “They live in shacks made of crates and rusted metal, with no running water or electricity. But their children are beautiful. They are loving people, but they know no other existence. Yet share the same hopes for their families as we do — health, happiness, and peace of mind.” Javier was one of those children many years ago. Because he wanted a better life, he walked five miles over rutted roads and through sugar cane fields to attend high school in a neighboring town. He did so well that an individual he met took an interest in him and paid for him to go to college, where he earned a medical degree. “Dr. Tony is still in the Dominican Republic today, because he promised himself if he ever became a doctor he wouldn’t forget where he came from,” Weisberg said. “Every day he puts on clean clothes and polished shoes and drives a mobile van into the bateyes to examine children and fill prescriptions. It’s an amazing story.” What hits closest to home for Weisberg is that under different circumstances, “this could be me and my children. We all have the same innocent beginning in live, but these children are faced with this horrible existence because there’s no infrastructure in their communities to support their lives,” he said. “Our purpose is to protect these innocent children.” Bilodeau founded MFH in 1997 on the premise that no child should die from lack of these basics. Weisberg came onboard later after the two men met when their sons were on the same basketball team. They coached together effectively then, and that same team approach and spirit continue today in their MFH work. “Dick and I are both passionate about what we’re doing. We feel that lives are in jeopardy if we don’t take action,” Bilodeau said. “To the extent we’re successful, lives will be saved. To the extent that we’re not, lives will be lost. We share a sense of responsibility as well as fulfillment.” Bilodeau shared the events that led up to the creation of MFH. “When I was 40 years old, I felt a desire, dating back to my 1960s youth, to get involved in something meaningful beyond the executive search work I was doing,” Bilodeau said. “After reading a story about the Por Cristo agency, which sends doctors to work with children in Ecuador, I decided I wanted to get involved with life and death issues and try to make a difference.” Because of his interest in saving lives, he was asked to join the Por Cristo board and travel to Ecuador. “Thus began my involvement with international health care,” Bilodeau said. He met a missionary priest, Father Frank, who was living in a shanty in a slum area of Ecuador overlooking a river basin, along with 300,000 other people. “There were a lot of health problems among the people living in huts,” Bilodeau recalled. His most heart-wrenching experience there was seeing the priest embracing a crying woman whose three-year-old son had died that day. “She was asking the priest for forgiveness because although her son had been sick, she had other children who were hungry and so decided to spend the money she had on food,” said Bilodeau. “The woman said she thought her son would get better and so didn’t buy any medicine and now was asking to be forgiven for making the wrong choice.” MFH was conceived on the spot following that experience. “No parent should have to make that choice,” he said. Child mortality That firsthand approach continues today. “Tim’s solution is to visit the country itself to meet with the people of the community in order to understand who they are and what they need. They work together to determine what the appropriate response might be and whether there is a credible resource in the community to partner with us,” Weisberg said. “We’re not just sending medicines to Third World countries not knowing whose hands they’re getting into.” Medicines for Humanity has a very tight focus on child mortality in the developing world, “the things that cause it, and how to treat them,” Bilodeau said. “A driving force is the strong sense of injustice that innocent children are dying unnecessarily. Because we’re small and focused, our benefactors feel an intense personal connection to the work.” Bilodeau was particularly struck by the fact that almost three out of 10 Angolan children don’t reach their fifth birthday. Weisberg noted that while economists often describe poverty as “getting along on $2 a day or less, we work in places where families are surviving on less than $1 a day.” Those served by MFH’s healthcare partners are asked to pay a 25-cent co-pay if they can afford it to help preserve their dignity. The money is used by healthcare workers to pay for gasoline to visit the site again the next day to offer services to even more children and families. MFH’s partners are typically service-minded religious groups dedicated to the impoverished people they serve. This collaboration builds upon the trust and bonds these groups have already established within their own communities. While those with whom MFH partners have the necessary clinical knowledge to save the maximum number of lives, they often lack the medicines necessary to accomplish this goal and the financial resources to implement effective children’s health initiatives. In addition to donating and shipping medicines for children, MFH provides the means for pre-natal care for women. “ Twenty thousand children die each day because they lack basic healthcare and medicines,” Bilodeau said.” And they’re dying from diseases that could be prevented or treated – diarrhea, acute respiratory infection, malaria, measles, and malnutrition -- if these basics were available.” Health education Health education is an important component – “simple nutritional education, teaching children to wash their hands, and helping parents learn what is good for their children,” Weisberg said. Maxime Salon on Derby Street recently began a charitable partnership with MFH and donates $1 from every client service provided. “Even five dollars can make a difference in countries MFH serves,” said owner Ronit Enos. Maxime is the first local business to reach out to MFH. “It’s part of the bigger vision of being citizens of the world,” Weisberg said. “We’re hoping others will also join the effort, get a firsthand sense of the working of a project [in a particular developing country], and then determine what the needs are and help us connect with resources once they come back.” Donations by check may be sent to: Medicines for Humanity, 800 Hingham St., Suite 1800, Rockland, MA 02370. Credit card donations may be made on-line at www.medicinesforhumanity.org. Click on “How You Can Help/Donate.” Ninety-five percent of every dollar contributed to MFH buys medicines or healthcare services. To find out more about ways you can help, call Bilodeau or Weisberg at (781) 982-0274. | 
