TOMS

For more than three years, TOMS Giving (TOMS), and Management Sciences for Health (MSH) have partnered to address critical health and social issues facing mothers and children in rural sub-Saharan Africa.

Together, MSH and TOMS have helped nearly 1,000,000 moms and kids in Uganda and Lesotho stay healthy.  

How are MSH and TOMS ensuring a successful partnership? Utilizing complementary innovation and expertise toward aligned social impact goals. TOMS is known for their innovative One for One® philanthropy model—for each pair of shoes that is purchased in higher-income countries, TOMS provides a pair of shoes for a child or caregiver in need—one for one. But often times, the logistics of providing these shoes in rural areas in Africa can be daunting. That’s where MSH comes in: For over 40 years, MSH has helped build locally-led, locally-run health systems in over 130 countries, including among the poorest and most vulnerable populations in some of the hardest-to-reach regions of the world.

The Building Local Capacity for Delivery of HIV Services in Southern Africa (BLC) Project, funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and led by Management Sciences for Health (MSH), provided a grant to The Luke Commission (TLC) to deliver safe medical male circumcision to men and boys in Swaziland. The BLC Project also provides organizational capacity building support to TLC. A version of this post originally appeared on the Southern Africa HIV and AIDS Regional Exchange (SHARE) blog.

Imagine the impact of a mobile clinic on your life if you lived in a rural area, did not earn an income, and could not afford to pay for transport to the clinic in the nearest city when you were ill. This situation results in some people waiting too long to access treatment for serious conditions—or putting off simple diagnostic tests for tuberculosis or HIV—and is why a mobile clinic is of such monumental importance to communities in Swaziland.

Earlier this month, on November 5, at Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art, MSH held a special event: a photography exhibition and global health discussion, moderated by Tom Ashbrook of NPR's On Point. The photos on display were by the 2012 MSH photography fellows who documented our life-saving work in Africa with people at all levels of the health system—from households to health workers to doctors and nurses to government officials and ministers of health. 

Tom Ashbrook led our panelists in a discussion of their visions for a world where everyone has the opportunity for a healthy life. The panelists were:

Cross-posted with permission from the Southern Africa HIV and AIDS Regional Exchange (SHARE).

I used to smile at the sentimental nickname for Lesotho, “The Mountain Kingdom.” Following a few visits to the capital Maseru, I had the opportunity to travel to the district of Mokhotlong, in the east of the country. Here I discovered that this term is more literal than symbolic, and no laughing matter. Narrow gravel roads with incredible switchback turns had me engaging in lively discussion in the car to avoid thinking about how close I was to the edge. More important than experiencing the rugged beauty of the physical landscape, it was on this trip that I began to discover and appreciate the grace and resilience of Lesotho’s people. A subsequent trip to Mohale’s Hoek, a district south of Maseru (further explained below) reinforced my growing admiration.