Mali Health Organizing Project (MHOP) is a nonprofit (Westminster Station, VT) that works to help slums in Mali create their own health care solutions and advocate for themselves at the local government levels … “When community committees learn to design, implement, and evaluate their own projects, they invest in health and ask their governments to do the same”.

Mali is located in west Africa and is the world’s 3rd poorest country. 72.3 percent of the population lives with less than $1 per day and 81% of the adult population is illiterate. Large numbers of people are migrating to Bamako, the fastest-growing city in Africa, and local slums (mostly under 100,000 people) are the focus of MHOP.

Specific programs of MHOP are focused on 3 areas - Health, Microfinance, Women’s Empowerment.

1) Health - Elected community committees design, implement, and evaluate their own projects. They also fundraise and advocate with local governments. Focus areas include Peer Education, Maternal and Child Health, Medical Clinic and Waste Management.

2) Microfinance - MHOP gives small loans to entrepreneurial women to help them start small businesses and work their way out of the cycle of poverty.

3) Women’s Empowerment Training - MHOP’s training programs include such areas as literacy, basic business and accounting, health, fabric dying, soap making, tailoring. Women who complete the training are given the option to apply for MHOP’s microfinance loans.

MHOP has an interesting financial program where MHOP holds the local community taxes in an escrow account. If the local government does not contribute its share of financing or does not implement the service, the community funds in escrow are returned to the local community members. MHOP also assists with financial donations to pay for a portion of projects (typically 35%) … while the local communities and local governments fund the remainder of the costs.

Information on intern or volunteer opportunities, financial donations, or Mali programs can be found on their website.