Freedom Beyond Mountains
Freedom Beyond Mountains
Partners in Health, or PIH, and Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, or BRAC, are both important global health institutions that have made significant and large impacts on populations all over the globe; however, they differ in several aspects, such as their beginnings, motivations, financing, scope, and scale.
Both PIH and BRAC were founded by passionate individuals who wanted to make positive changes to people’s health and lives. They were both founded on the basis of one of the core principles of global health: public health is not medicine. PIH was founded in 1987 in Haiti, at the hands of Paul Farmer, Ophelia Dahl, and Jim Kim, about two years after the Clinique Bon Saveur was initiated in Cange. BRAC was founded in 1972 in Bangladesh, at the hands of Fazle Hasan Abed, and started out with emergency programs in Sulia following the devastating war. The roots of PIH can be found in a community-based approach to health care and socioeconomic support with emphasis on preferential options for the poor. BRAC, on the other hand, defines itself primarily as a developmental organization dedicated to fighting poverty as a way to empower the poor to bring change into their own lives. Financially, both organizations rely heavily upon donor funding; but PIH’s annual budget is around $65 million U.S. dollars while BRAC’s annual budget is around $495 million U.S. dollars. In terms of scope and scale, both organizations began working in one country (Haiti and Bangladesh respectively), expanded to other regions within that country, and eventually expanded to a total of ten countries around the world, including countries in Africa and Asia. However, when considering the scale of each organization’s operations, it seems that BRAC pursues a wider breadth of projects. BRAC (with a whopping 110 million staff and volunteers!) believes in promoting development and tackling poverty through a variety of projects, including not only tackling disease and
Partners in Health, or PIH, and Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, or BRAC, are both important global health institutions that have made significant and large impacts on populations all over the globe; however, they differ in several aspects, such as their beginnings, motivations, financing, scope, and scale.
Both PIH and BRAC were founded by passionate individuals who wanted to make positive changes to people’s health and lives. They were both founded on the basis of one of the core principles of global health: public health is not medicine. PIH was founded in 1987 in Haiti, at the hands of Paul Farmer, Ophelia Dahl, and Jim Kim, about two years after the Clinique Bon Saveur was initiated in Cange. BRAC was founded in 1972 in Bangladesh, at the hands of Fazle Hasan Abed, and started out with emergency programs in Sulia following the devastating war. The roots of PIH can be found in a community-based approach to health care and socioeconomic support with emphasis on preferential options for the poor. BRAC, on the other hand, defines itself primarily as a developmental organization dedicated to fighting poverty as a way to empower the poor to bring change into their own lives. Financially, both organizations rely heavily upon donor funding; but PIH’s annual budget is around $65 million U.S. dollars while BRAC’s annual budget is around $495 million U.S. dollars. In terms of scope and scale, both organizations began working in one country (Haiti and Bangladesh respectively), expanded to other regions within that country, and eventually expanded to a total of ten countries around the world, including countries in Africa and Asia. However, when considering the scale of each organization’s operations, it seems that BRAC pursues a wider breadth of projects. BRAC (with a whopping 110 million staff and volunteers!) believes in promoting development and tackling poverty through a variety of projects, including not only tackling disease and