Our missions have lasted over 40 years due to a solid partnership between:
1. The Department of Pediatric Surgery CHUV (Lausanne, Switzerland), who:
- Provides surgical and nursing staff for the yearly surgical missions
- Organizes the orders of equipment and medicine necessary for the missions
- Provides the database for our patients with complete long-term follow-up
2. The Pediatric Department of the Hospital Zou-Collines (Abomey, Benin), who:
- Prepares the consultations and surgical missions
- Screens the potential candidates for surgery and does laboratory work-ups
- Provides living accommodations for children and accompanying parents
- Provides consultation rooms, prepares the operating rooms and personnel
- Provides laboratory personnel for pre and post-op evaluation
- Provides support for the permanent pediatric surgical resident
- Is responsible for the surgical and medical equipment
3. The “Terres des hommes” Fondation (TDH)
- Coordinates contacts with the government of Benin and the Ministry of Health
- Organizes transportation of the patients and surgical team
- Takes care of transport of equipment sent to Benin from Switzerland
- Provides logistic support of the missions
- Participates financially to help families who need it
- Provides the social workers who find children who could potentially benefit
from the program and provide support and follow-up.
We also would like to thank the following important benefactors:
- BBraun for their generous donation over the years of surgical sutures and materials
- MEPHA for their generous donations of antibiotics
- ASANUS for their donation in 2015 of surgical instruments to equip the new operating theatre
- MMM for their donation in 2015 of the sterilization material for our instruments
- The CHUV (and Celine Vicario, head of the humanitarian fund of the CHUV) who provided funds to acquire the two anesthesia machines for the operating rooms and support for a surgical resident from Benin training in Lausanne for a year.
- All the private donors who through their donations provide the necessary financial support to continue and expand our work.