Local foundation Brother’s Brother shipping medical supplies to Africa
admin | Dec 30, 2011 | Comments 9
Culled from Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Friday, December 30, 2011
By Ann Rodgers, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Luke Hingson, left, president of Brother's Brother Foundation, shows a operation bed to Tillman Collins, president of GGAA
To American eyes, the hand-cranked hospital beds in the North Side warehouse of the Brother’s Brother Foundation appear to be obsolete. But to hospitals in Africa without electricity, they are priceless Tillman Collins, a Pleasant Hills resident who was a member of Liberia’s congress until civil war forced him to flee 18 years ago, was delighted to inspect them. Now, as president of the Grand Gedeh Association in the Americas, named for his native county in Liberia, he is working with Brother’s Brother to supply a hospital there.
Though the wars ended in 2003, Liberia has barely begun to recover. Its hospitals were looted, shelled, medical books burned for fuel.
“Poor people here would be middle class in my country. They have electricity and running water,” he said.
Luke Hingson, president of Brother’s Brother, said that patients in African hospitals often sleep on the floor for lack of beds.
Brother’s Brother was founded in 1958, after Mr. Hingson’s father, anesthesiologist Dr. Robert Hingson, led a medical mission to Liberia and saw the need. Partnering with charities in the United States and abroad, the foundation solicited good, surplus medical supplies and shipped them to where they were needed. It also provides educational and emergency relief supplies.
According to its annual report, in 2010 Brother’s Brother shipped about $270 million worth of medical, educational and humanitarian relief supplies to 53 nations in 236 containers. Brother’s Brother also gave cartons of medical supplies to health workers who were going on 241 mission trips to 36 countries.
Although the hospital that Mr. Collins is raising money for is public, most health facilities that serve the poor in Africa are run by churches, Mr. Hingson said. Brother’s Brother, which is secular, decided two years ago to make medical supplies for Africa a major focus. It is currently assisting Lutheran, Methodist, Catholic, Adventist, Salvation Army, Presbyterian and independent evangelical health facilities in Zimbabwe, Liberia, Tanzania, South Sudan and Malawi.
In 2011 Brother’s Brother shipped 22 sea-going cargo containers of medical supplies to those nations.
It helps local church groups send supplies to partners overseas. Pittsburgh Presbytery is active in Malawi, for instance, while the Spiritan Fathers at Duquesne University have missions in Tanzania.
Duquesne has become one of the foundation’s many partners. Anne Marie Hansen, an assistant professor of occupational therapy, had been a lay missionary in Tanzania and has spent 30 years doing research there. She had encouraged the Spiritans to work with Brother’s Brother to support their African missions but didn’t get personally involved until two years ago. That was when the deans of Duquesne’s heath sciences and business schools collaborated on sending five containers of medical and educational supplies to Tanzania.
Ms. Hansen offered to lead a needs assessment for Brother’s Brother, to make sure the hospitals got supplies that they truly needed. She surveyed Catholic and Lutheran hospitals in the Arusha region of Tanzania, which she said serve the poorest of the poor. Maternity wards routinely have two or three women in labor sharing a bed, she said.
“One thing I really appreciate about Brother’s Brother is that they didn’t just want to send stuff because they had it. They were concerned at looking at what the specific needs are,” she said.
Hand-cranked surgical tables and beds were desperately needed. They have been donated by nursing homes and health centers that are phasing them out for convenience, though they meet all U.S. standards. Volunteer retirees from American Sterilizer in Erie refurbish them.
“It’s being done by the same people who made them 20 years ago,” Mr. Hingson said.
Because Brother’s Brother started in Liberia, work there is close to Mr. Hingson’s heart. Mr. Collins is organizing aid for Tubman Hospital, a public facility in Grand Gedeh. Through him, Mr. Hingson connected with members of the Krao ethnic group, who are raising funds for Redemption Hospital in New Kru Town, Liberia.
Liberian work got a boost from Myron Hartman, program director of the Biomedical Engineering Technology program at Penn State, who made an assessment trip for Brother’s Brother and the United Methodist Committee on Relief a year ago.
In order to provide sophisticated equipment, such as badly needed X-ray machines, he had to train technicians to assemble and maintain them. He brought two Liberians to Penn State and gave them intensive training. They are now back in Liberia, reassembling donated equipment that they dismantled over the summer in the United States.
Mr. Collins dreams of a day when American-educated Liberian refugees will return to help rebuild that country. He will take volunteers there in 2012 to paint and rebuild parts of Tubman Hospital. He is also raising money for a water tower, because the hospital lacks running water.
“When we heard about Brother’s Brother and got in touch with Luke, it was a blessing,” Mr. Collins said.
The foundation is helping the Liberians to help themselves, he said.
“In Africa we always depended on the government to do things for us. Now we need to get involved and do things for ourselves.”
Editor’s note: This story was culled from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the author ( Ann Rodgers) can be reached @: arodgers@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1416.
Thank you Mr. President!
Bravo, to the Collins Administration. This is the whole idea of the association. To help our people back home and the diaspora. It makes sense to recognise a good deed when implemented. This project is indeed a very good task. Hence, i am impressed. A million thanks to the administration.
Congratulation Mr. Collins on your quest to bring services to our stuggling people. Can’t wait till those items get to our folks.
Bravo!
Kwame Oldpa Weeks
Mr. Collins or Mr. President
You are now the gateway of what will be the beginning of Grand Gedeh new generation of leaders. We really appreciate all the efforts of your administration. Your administration helped created new Chapters in our union. You made active the Iowa Chapter once again and brought unity to the union by reaching out to all of us. We can now proudly say GGAA is our organization.
We have not had any President who’s down to earth and yet understands the need of our people back home. You have our moral and financial support. We are proud to be on the map once again. Keep up the good work.
Harry
Mr. Collins,
I alway knewn that you are up to something: Making Grand Gedeh Association to be what it suppose to be. This is what we have been talking about in these years; We fought hard despite all the abuses and insults, our people got the message and elected a progressive leadership; not an imposed fraudulent and corrupt leadership. You Tillman Collins know who are those that were standing against progress and you courageously sidelined them. I am happy that the GGAA is moving forward, doing things that it should have been doing years ago. You have the blessings of our forefathers and you will suceed.
Joseph Solo
P. Allison Tarlue, Sr. says:
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December 31, 2011 at 3:54 pm
Mr. Collins, my son,
Thank you so very much. You make me, Bai Gbala, Seward Boons, Joseph Pour, Columbus Zinnah and William Jolo; last three Elders of Gbarzon Statutory District Amuenu organization in the America, very proud and proud indeed we are today under your administration. Why do I say so?
Because we broke with the unattainable and non-committal policy of non-involvement of the Grand Gedeh Elders in our diaspora community and made open our support for you during your recent campaign for the GGAA’s national leadership. We made that decision with no apology because we felt then and feel now, that if Elders under the palm tree should not allow the tapping knife to get lost, they have to be involved. How in the world Elders will stop the tapping knife from getting lost if they are not there under the palm tree? Yes, we gave respect to their parents respect and honor in the past and today. But they will not respect us today, so what? For so long we allow the young people [Grand Gedeans]to carry on the leadership. So what we and our people back home got from them. Shameless corruption, refusal to leave office when their time expires, refusal to turn over money and other properties belonging to the diaspora community and then forced from office. I say with authority that because the older folks are not among them that is why all the tapping knives have been sneaked under their personal beds to no benefit to ourselves and our suffering people back home. Therefore, I make this a WAKE UP CALL for the Elders to get involved so that we can have the clear vision and opportunity to tell any one of the young Grand Gedeans not to do things the wrong and stupid way as they are doing. Remember that it is difficult to correct wrong that can be prevented for we all know very well that: “Prevention is better than cure.”
The reconstruction of Grand Gedeh County starts with us in the America. That is the reason why God made it possible for us to get on this side of the world. On December 29, 2011, the people of Grand Cape Mount County officially dedicated Konjah Bridge in Liberia. Report from that ceremony stated: “Cape Mountanians in the United States have completed an ambitious bridge project in Porkpa District, Grand Cape Mount County, costing over US$100,000.00.” What can the Grand Gedeans say too: “O.” What a shame! I will remiss to end here without calling for national audit of all previous administrations of the GGAA’s leadership including all Districts’ organizations in the Grand Gedeh diaspora community for the past 10 years. They still have those monies and money can not get rotten and our people need our financial help to alleviate their untold sufferings.
P. Allison Tarlue, Sr.
To the Collins Administration.
Congratulations and keep up the good work.
Isaac Rue
President Collins
I want to say a big thank you to you and your staff for the good work you are doing. May the Almighty God continue to give you the needed energies. I am very proud of you. Keep up the good work.
Dear Dad
Good Job on your accomplishment,I’m very honored to call you my father.I wish more people had the heart you have for helping others.
Tristian