Berkeley, California-based Global Health Access Program (GHAP) focuses on providing medical and health support to Burma’s refugees in Thailand as well as those still living in Burma (also called Myanmar by current government).

In 1989, GHAP’s founder Ben Brown worked with local doctors and mobile mission medics on the Thai-Burma border to provide medical aid to the refugees fleeing from the conflict in Burma. In 1998, efforts were made to start supporting the Burmese people still living inside Burma.

Dr. Cynthia Maung, who has been described as “Burma’s Mother Teresa”, worked with Ben Brown in 1989 and has received several international awards for her humanitarian work. Her international clinic has helped many thousands of refugees living in the Thailand - Burma/Myanmar area.

Ethnic minority organizations with Burma have their own medical staff that can walk for as long as one month to reach distant villages with medical supplies, often at tremendous risk of landmines, and being killed by hostile government troops.

GHAP supports Dr. Maung’s Mae Tao Clinic and ethnic minority health organizations by providing health worker training, technical support, medical supplies, and supports the building of local health resources.

Programs include:

• Malaria prevention - Burma records the most malaria deaths of any country in Southeast Asia.
• Reproductive Health - With the support of The Bill and Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health, GHAP and other organizations established a network of mobile maternal health centers which trains local health workers and midwives.
• Medical Training - In 2003, 40 health workers graduated from the Mae Tao clinic to return to their home communities.
• Information Assistance - In 2004, The Center for Health and Human Rights at the John Hopkins School of Public Health partnered with the Mae Tao Clinic and local health organizations to document the impact of human rights violations on health.
• Trauma Care- In a 2003 survery, 80 percent of respondents reported feeling threatened every day by landmines. Approximately 1,500 landmine casualties are recorded each year. GHAP provides surgical equipment and supplies to train local workers to treat landmine injuries. Local trauma centers can offer transfusions (screened for HIV) and other emergency care.
• Tuberculosis -The World Health Organization considers Burma to be one of the 22 “high burden” countries for TB. GHAP works with local medical organizations or provide education, screening, testing and treatment for tuberculosis.

GHAP has needs for donations of laptops, digital video cameras, DV tapes, external hard drives, digital cameras, 35mm slide and print film, photo scanners, solar panels, medical supplies and pharmaceuticals. Volunteer opportunities are also listed on their website for people with skills in database management, computer networks, video editing, human rights documentation, website maintenance and medical experience.