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I have been a medical missionary doctor working in East Africa the past 33 years. Also, I’m the founder and CEO of the two St. Mary’s Mission Hospitals in Kenya, which serve over 300,000 lower-income patients annually.  It is indeed my pleasure to write this letter of recommendation regarding the American Foundation For Children With AIDS  (“AFCA”).  Over the past eight years that we’ve been receiving help from  AFCA, our respect for this organization has only increased. The AFCA is a small organization, strongly focused upon its mission goal as stated in its name. What I find especially admirable about AFCA is that it has avoided heavy administrative structures and [...]

The recent unfavorable portrayal of AFCA in an unfair and untrue article by the Tampa Bay Times and The Center for Investigative Reporting. We have read the unfair and untrue article on our partner, AFCA, by the Tampa Bay Times about nonprofit organizations that don’t do what they told people they were doing and that they steal and that they don’t help anyone.  We have this to say: Papoli Community Development Foundation came into partnership with AFCA in 2010 and from that year we have had very fruitful collaboration in saving and improving the lives of our underserved children and in particular children that are infected at birth by the [...]

ReachGlobal, the international mission of the EFCA (Evangelical Free Church of America) has partnered with AFCA (American Foundation for Children with AIDS) since around 2008. I personally, on staff with EFCA and working primarily in DR Congo, have had many interactions with AFCA leadership, both face to face and by email, and have witnessed their heart of compassion and integrity as they have partnered with us in DR Congo. ReachGlobal ministers alongside its sister denomination in Congo, CECU (Communaute Evangelique du Christ en l’Ubangi), a denomination of over 900 churches in the northwest corner of Congo. CECU has an HIV and AIDS department, as well as a large hospital (Tandala), [...]

The American Foundation for Children with AIDS  (AFCA) helps clinics/hospitals care for HIV+ children and their guardians/caregivers in four different Sub-Saharan countries – Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe and the Democratic Republic of Congo.  These partners vary wildly in their levels of modernization and means.  They range from full service hospitals with electricity to dried mud hut clinics.  This means our ways of helping them must vary also. In Mombasa, Kenya, AFCA has helped the Community Based Health Care and AIDS Relief Project (CBHC) in 2005.  While I was there in January of this year, I was able to see the great good this charity does to help thousands of the very [...]

Wednesday is fast approaching. Wednesday is the day I will leave for a field visit to Zimbabwe to see how the children are doing, how livestock are growing and reproducing and to meet with field staff to gather reports, determine how things are going so far and find out what we can do to make things better.  As usual, it is amazing to reconnect with old friends (the field staff) and to see the children and their guardians.  I am so looking forward to sitting down to a cup of tea and some good stories of goats and piglets being born, children drinking milk for the first time in a [...]

I was recently able to accompany American Foundation for Children with AIDS (AFCA)’s executive director, Tanya Weaver, on her annual inspection trip to visit one of the programs we support in Mombasa, Kenya.  This was my first opportunity to see AFCA in action in Africa. I left a few days later with a much great understanding of the tremendous need for help in Sub-Sahara Africa.  The number of sick and hungry children in Mombasa is really overwhelming at first.  But, the number of children being served and cared for by AFCA is enormous, too.  I left with a greater appreciation for the vast good AFCA does, and a renewed commitment [...]

It's three days before the second annual Run for Their Lives 5k to benefit the American Foundation for Children with AIDS, and I receive an email with the question, "I know your race is rain or shine, but what about tropical storm?"  I reply with a cheerful, "The weather is going to be just fine!"  All the while I'm thinking, "Hmm, I hope so."  We've prepared for months for this event and I'm tracking the tropical storm as it makes its way up the east coast.  Not an ideal situation, but the race must go on.  However, God has mercy on us and the storm blows through the Lebanon, PA [...]

Every dollar donated toward Project One Million can purchase a month supply of antibiotics. Antibiotics are used to treat bacterial infections, and are so powerful, they can save lives. Recent studies have discovered that inexpensive antibiotics can halve the deaths by AIDS and greatly improves quality of lives of HIV+ patients. AFCA provides antibiotics for HIV+ children for them to combat HIV and other infections that may endanger their lives or be obstacles in their daily life. “This is a breakthrough in medical research which can help to save children’s lives all over the world.” – International Development Secretary Hilary Benn Co-trimoxazole is the newly discovered breakthrough. Drug resistance to [...]

Last week I spoke to several Girl Scout troops about AFCA’s work with children affected by AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa. The presentation, accompanied by pictures of several children in our programs, was part of the organization’s annual World Thinking Day activities, themed this year, “Together We can Save Children’s Lives.” I couldn’t agree more. What struck me most about my time with the Girl Scouts, ages 5 through 17, was how intently they listened to the stories of children who live half-way around the globe from them, surviving in the desperate circumstances they have been born into. The Girl Scouts I spoke to genuinely connected to AFCA’s mission. I told [...]

AFCA fully supports that the power of youth cannot be underestimated in a changing world. With this is mind we want to train youth in husbandry and gardening, and to purchase, transport, and deliver livestock and seeds to AIDS orphans. Once the orphans receive livestock (goats, chickens, guinea fowl, sheep, or pigs), they also receive non-genetically modified seeds to start personal gardens. While youth drink milk and eat eggs from their animals, their gardens grow, giving the kids green vegetables, corn, and peanuts while their animals reproduce and herds/flocks grow. After a predetermined amount of time, when the flocks are large, the youth are allowed to sell, barter, slaughter, and [...]