What we do: The MEDLIFE Model
MEDLIFE seeks to help free poor individuals and families from the constraints of poverty to live more healthy, productive and fulfilling lives. We do this through helping to build up stronger and more vibrant medical and educational facilities in the public sector. While we are always open to partnering with other NGO’s our heart lies in partnering with the medical providers, teachers and community leaders who are on the ground 365 days a year providing services to the poor, the true heroes in the fight against poverty. These individuals who day after day seek to provide the best services possible to the poor deserve not only recognition but our support to extend the services that are already being provided to make sure their efforts reach the poorest of the poor.
We do this through partnering with health centers, schools and communities in developing countries and we listen to their needs. Early on we learned that there is no magical silver bullet that will solve the problem of poverty. We could narrowly define our mission statement but we would be excluding the needs of millions if not billions of people living in poverty. For example, while finding the cure to a disease will potentially save millions of lives if there is no one to administer the cure to the poor then there is no cure for the poor. For this reason we believe that it is crucial to build up the public sector facilities that serve the poor so that regardless of the disease or problem facing the poor there are prepared professionals with the appropriate resources ready to treat, educate and serve the poor.
We also recognize that there is a need to increase the exposure of global health issues to the next generation of students that will be the leaders seeking new cures, developing new public health policies and providing services to the poor. As such we believe its essential to offer introductory and longer terms experiences teaching students about global health issues. To accomplish this goal we use the medical model of "see one, do one, teach one" where we teach students about global health issues, encourage them to participate in our on the ground projects and then ask them to work to teach other students about these issues. In this way we are working to create a student lead movement to increase awareness about global health issues and build a stronger, more capable public health and education sector.
Logistically we accomplish these goals by dividing donations into two distinct funds, the mission fund and the medlife fund.
The mission of the MEDLIFE Fund is to create medical clinics, schools and other development projects to promote access to basic necessities and skills encouraging poor people to free themselves from the constraints of poverty and promote a cycle of health, education and personal development. 100% of this fund will be used for the creation of these infrastructure projects. Whenever possible these facilities are donated directly to the community they serve and will work in conjunction with the public agencies that promote their use to build a stronger more capable public sector.
The Mission Fund promotes local primary care providers to bring preventative and curative treatment to people living in poverty who live in marginalized, rural or areas that otherwise prevent their access to quality medical care. These funds support efforts to educate these patients about gender and age specific health concerns. Whenever possible providers work in coordination with public sector agencies promoting health.
The fund also provides students with real-life, hands-on experience working with poor and underserved populations and to provide them an opportunity to reflect on the root causes and implications of poverty. Through this reflection we seek to promote a realization of an individual’s ability to positively affect the lives of people living in poverty through pragmatic empathy and life-long engagement. Finally, this fund is used to support the logistical and operational expenses associated with these goals as stated above.
At its core, MEDLIFE is a group of students and young professionals who have decided to stand up against the injustice they saw in the world. Our objective is to work with motivated individuals and communities to help bring access to healthcare, education and community development to poor communities to improve overall health. Though international in scope, MEDLIFE is fundamentally dependent upon student involvement. In the few short years since it’s founding, MEDLIFE has brought medical care to thousands of poor people, and has helped innumerable people receive life-altering interventions.
Unlike many organizations which work in the arenas of global health and social justice, we have great confidence in the resourcefulness, responsibility, and power present in United States colleges and universities, and we take great pride in giving students unparalleled opportunities to have a meaningful and tangible effect on their world. MEDLIFE campus chapters are fundamentally responsible for the success of the organization as a whole, and we take great pains to ensure all our members feel the same sense of responsibility and accountability to the poor as those in the highest levels of MEDLIFE leadership. This uniquely democratic style of leadership and responsibility has allowed us to rapidly gather a phenomenal group of inspired students with deep personal commitment to helping the poor. Students who show unusual commitment to MEDLIFE are also invited to engage in higher levels of leadership.
It could be said that MEDLIFE is involved in two utterly intertwined but fundamentally distinct tasks: partnering with the poor to improve their health and well-being, and raising up the next generation of social justice leaders. Because we insist upon giving students such responsibility and opportunity to lead, being a student MEDLIFE member is a great opportunity to learn about global health! We have never been interested in engaging students who merely wanted to put "volunteered on a medical mission" on a resume. Rather, we seek to create student leaders, students who would challenge us with new ways to help the poor, and who are willing to help us reach these goals.
