Tearfund
Tearfund is a Christian relief and development agency working with a global network of local churches to help eradicate poverty.
MAF currently does two flights every week to Korr, northern Kenya, in support of Tearfund’s projects amongst the Rendille and Samburu.
Tearfund’s main focus in this hot, arid region is of nutrition, including education and food distribution to the most vulnerable.
When Olivia Agut, a nutritionist, once made the road journey from Nairobi to Korr, she admitted: ‘It was so scary. We had to pay the escort and were told that often bandits shoot at vehicles from the hills. I prefer the plane – 101 times!’
MAF also supports Tearfund’s work in northern Uganda and southern Sudan.
Impact Foundation
Impact Foundation Bangladesh has been working with the aim to achieve sustainable increase in the living standards of the rural poor by preventing the causes of disability through education, awareness, training and appropriate social and economic programmes: and also through curative medical services.
One third of Bangladesh is covered with water. Impact Foundation’s answer to providing medical access in hard-to-access areas is their mobile floating hospital, the Jibon Tari.
MAF’s amphibious Cessna Caravan is the only floatplane in the country. It regularly supports Impact by shuttling medical supplies and doctors to and from the Jibon Tari. This saves them a challenging and tiresome journey by land and boat and therefore enables them to help more patients.
“The time of good surgeons in Dhaka is precious. Travelling can be very tiring. It is good with MAF, they are coming comfortably, giving some of their precious time for us.” Mr Ikhtiar Shawon - Impact’s Jibon Tari when in Chamrarghat, Kishorganj
Haydom Hospital
Haydom Hospital is a missionary hospital which has operated in Tanzania since 1953.
The hospital partners with MAF each month to provide a medical ‘safari’ to remote villages in north-eastern Tanzania.
Landing in several different locations, teams of doctors are dropped off in remote villages to provide healthcare and mother-and-child clinics. These clinic would be unsustainable without MAF’s assistance. Vaccination programmes in the remote villages also rely on the regularity of the safaris.
MAF is often called on to rush a desperately ill patient to the hospital as soon as the aircraft has landed at the remote sites.
Often, evangelists will join the safari and share the Gospel while the medical team are running clinics.
“At Haydom we are very pleased with the very close and meaningful collaboration with MAF” Dr Øystein, Haydom Hospital
Medair
Medair is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) that was formed in 1989 by three organisations coming together in partnership: Mission Aviation Fellowship, Youth with a Mission, and Medicines for Africa.
Medair brings life-saving relief and rehabilitation in disasters, conflict areas, and other crises by working alongside the most vulnerable. Its mission is to seek out and serve the forgotten women, children, and men in crisis who live in difficult-to-access regions in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia (www.medair.org).
Medair’s internationally recruited staff are motivated by their Christian faith to care for people in need. It provides a flexible range of relief and rehabilitation services, with expertise in health care, water and sanitation, and shelter and infrastructure.
MAF regularly flies Medair staff in Africa, bringing medical teams and staff as well as supplies for the projects to the difficult-to-access areas where they work.
Regular MAF flights also assist Medair as they support refugees and internally displaced persons with medical care and through establishing temporary settlements. Medair is also one of the few organisations that responds to outbreaks. Local authorities report the outbreak to Medair staff, who will often call on MAF to fly them immediately to the source of the outbreak.
“We in Medair rely frequently on MAF to take our staff and supplies to people in crisis we could not reach otherwise. Many of these places have no road, or the roads are too insecure or impossible to travel with enough speed to respond to emergency situations. We're grateful for our long-standing partnership with MAF." Mark Screeton, Medair Programmes Manager