January 2007: GROUND BROKEN FOR PROJECT PEDS’ PEDIATRIC FACILITY AT MATARA

$ 400,000 Donation From Bush Clinton Tsunami Fund Facilitates Progress For Project Peds

On January 16, 2007, the Sri Lankan Foreign Minister, Mangala Samaraweera, formally initiated ground breaking at the site where Project Peds’ 100-bed Matara Pediatric Facility (MPF) will soon stand. Hundreds of Matara residents thronged to the ceremony to see where their children and grandchildren will receive high quality medical attention for generations to come.

Mr. Chaminda Wijetilleke and Mr. Lionel Jayaratne attended the ground-breaking ceremony on behalf of Project Peds. “When you walk on the land [where our pediatric hospital will be] and you see hundreds of people in attendance for the ceremony and then see the granite foundation with “World Children’s Initiative” on it, it’s a pretty incredible feeling to see our project becoming tangible,” Mr. Wijetilleke remarked. “We would not have been able to get this far without support from the dozens of donors – big and small – and dedicated volunteers who have sacrificed so much to advance our project. I keep thinking about the support we’ve received from President Bush and President Clinton’s Tsunami Foundation; their huge donation has given us the capital and credibility to play a prominent role in revitalizing pediatric healthcare in Sri Lanka” Mr. Wijetilleke added.

(Pictured From Left to Right: Shani Pereira, Lionel Jayaratne (Project Peds’ Project Manager, SL), Chaminda Wijetilleke (Project Peds Steering Committee Member), Navein Pereira (Project Peds Coordinator (SL), Dr Eshara Perera (Ministry of Health), Suchit Mohdi (Project Peds Architect)

Foreign Minister Mangala Samaraweera (foreground) delivers a speech at the groundbreaking ceremony for the Korea-Sri Lanka Friendship Hospital, Matara Sri Lanka

World Children’s Initiative is a newly formed 501c3 non-profit that was born from the vision of a few South Asian American professionals who traveled to Sri Lanka in the aftermath of the tsunami and were moved not only by the acute losses that children had suffered but also by the lack of sustainable, pediatric healthcare in Sri Lanka’s Southern Province, particularly the Matara District. They noted that the already overcrowded, understaffed and underfinanced pediatric facility at Matara General Hospital was staggering under the weight of a pediatric patient population that had lost its local clinics. WCI, together with Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh (CHP) and Children’s National Medical Center (CNMC), launched Project Peds to rescue pediatric healthcare in southern Sri Lanka by developing a new MPF: a teaching and tertiary care facility that will serve as the template for state-managed children’s healthcare in Sri Lanka and other developing nations.

The Matara Pediatric Facility will not stand in isolation. Partly because of the attention WCI focused on rehabilitating pediatric healthcare in southern Sri Lanka, the Government of Sri Lanka (GOSL) has engaged the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) to finance and build an adult medical complex, the Korea-Sri Lanka Friendship Hospital, to complement MPF. As such, obstetrics wards and family clinics will function in close proximity to MPF, providing complementary services. Project Peds and KOICA are now collaborating to overhaul and revolutionize healthcare delivery in Sri Lanka; their architects have met and are currently working on integrating the draft schematics for MPF into KOICA’s plans for the larger hospital complex.

Breaking -ground at the MPF site is both the culmination of and metaphor for what Project Peds has achieved on so many fronts in the past year.

Fundraising: On the fundraising front, Project Peds has had enormous success. Project Peds has raised nearly $ 600,000 of the estimated $ 2 million cost of the new pediatric hospital. The sources of these funds are many and varied. The Bush Clinton Tsunami Foundation donated $ 400,000. CHP, CNMC and Kaiser Permanente collected nearly $ 100,000. In a demonstration of the significant support that WCI enjoys in the Sri Lankan American community and the broader South Asian American community, WCI has raised $ 80,000 in individual donations. This includes $ 13,000 raised at a Sri Lankan American community fundraiser in Washington D.C., which witnessed more than 200 people in attendance, including the Sri Lankan ambassadors to the United States and the United Nations. It also includes donations from the sponsors of a South Boston doctor who ran the length of the Boston Marathon in WCI’s name.

WCI has also raised $ 60,000 at the 2006 Sri Lankan American Medical Association of North America (SLMANA) Conference. Donations from the Sri Lankan American medical community are particularly relevant because they signal likely involvement of doctors in the treatment and operation of the hospital not just in fundraising. WCI expects that some of those who donated at the SLMANA conference will apply for and receive grants from WCI for visiting fellowships. Their contribution as teachers at the Project Peds pediatric facility’s Public Health Training Center will further strengthen the academic and training component of Project Peds.

Staffing: After an exhaustive search, Project Peds has assembled a professional, highly qualified, new team dedicated to developing WCI as well as implementing the programs of Project Peds. Key hires include:

Kristin Maresca, a non-profit and international development professional, joined WCI full-time in January 2007 as its Managing Director.

Lionel Jayaratne, a former senior project manager with USAID in Sri Lanka, will be joining WCI full-time in February 2007 as the in-country Project Manager for Project Peds.

Ericka Fink, MD (Pediatric Intensivist at CHP) will be traveling to Sri Lanka to conduct a comprehensive healthcare re-assessment in the spring of 2007, the results of which she will use to help develop the clinical practice guidelines.

Bryan Fine, MD, MPH (CNMC) will be collaborating with Dr. Fink in developing clinical practice guidelines as well as initiating database implementation to help measure clinical outcomes/effectiveness metrics.

Assembling a seasoned management team and well trained pediatricians who are both doctors and teachers is essential to raising the standard of care at the Matara Pediatric Facility. The management team will not only oversee the design and construction of MPF and tend to essential administrative tasks; they will also build and maintain key coalitions of local activists and community leaders who will ensure that MPF is properly funded and supported for the long term. Doctors Fine and Fink will conduct an assessment of the population’s most crucial pediatric health needs and also develop programs and best practice guidelines to address these needs. Their role is critical to Project Peds accomplishing its key mission: harvesting and adapting the teaching curricula and clinical practices developed at leading pediatric teaching institutions in the United States in a manner suited to the resources, human capital, and community standards of the southern Sri Lankan community.

Project Peds, with two prominent children’s hospitals and a number of academic pediatricians and other American doctors on staff, is uniquely situated to staff and run MPF’s Public Health Training Center.

Next Steps: Project Peds will continue to seek funding from a number of donors of all scales. It currently has proposals pending before Americares and the American Red Cross; Project Peds is confident that it will soon have all the funding that it needs to fully develop MPF.

On the project execution front, Project Peds will continue to work with KOICA to construct MPF and integrate it into the Sri Lanka-Korean Friendship Hospital. Project Peds will also continue to conduct needs assessments and, with the assistance of Doctors Fine and Fink and other medical experts both in Sri Lanka and the United States, promulgate a set of clinical guidelines and best management practices so that MPF will quickly provide a sustainable, high level of care for its patient population.

To ensure sustainability, Project Peds will press forward with amending its existing Memorandum of Understanding with the Government of Sri Lanka to gain additional, specific commitments for long term funding and staffing of MPF. A current amendment to the Project Peds/ GOSL MOU has been approved at all levels of the Ministry of Health and Project Peds looks forward to the imminent execution of the amended MOU.

Recognizing that local support is critical to the long term success of MPF, Project Peds’ project management team in Sri Lanka will continue to secure support from community leaders in Colombo and Matara and give them a strong stake in the success of MPF.

For more information, please visit www.slprojectpeds.org.

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Project Peds Starts 2006 Fundraising Effort with Major Donations from Presidents Bush and Clinton - March 2006

International initiative to rebuild health care in Sri Lanka stands ready to start construction on pediatrics ward

March 27, 2006 (Washington, DC) – Project Peds, an international health initiative backed by two renowned children’s hospitals, has received a $400,000 donation from the Bush Clinton Tsunami Fund to boost its efforts to resurrect the pediatric ward of Matara General Hospital in tsunami-ravaged southern Sri Lanka. Helmed by former Presidents George H.W. Bush and William J. Clinton, the Fund has given Project Peds its single largest donation to date. It serves as an endorsement from two distinguished presidents who have learned to identify successful non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from their work in the White House and, most recently, through their months of hands-on tsunami fundraising at President George W. Bush’s request.

Former Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton film a public service announcement encouraging the American people to make cash donations to the tsunami relief effort on January 5, 2005 (www.whitehouse.gov).

Managed by two prestigious hospitals, Children’s National Medical Center (CNMC) in Wa shington D.C. and Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh (CHP), Project Peds is the maiden project of a growing and increasingly sophisticated non-profit, World Children’s Initiative (WCI). In 2005, its first year of operation, Project Peds had received approximately $100,000 in donations from various donors including CNMC, CHP, Kaiser Permanente, and scores of individuals. The donation from the former Presidents raises the total raised to half a million dollars and moves Project Peds a full five months ahead of their 2006 fundraising plan. Project Peds now has the capital to begin construction on the pediatrics ward and furnish it with almost all the required non-critical care equipment, such as infusion pumps and portable x-rays.

“We are thrilled to be so far ahead of our fundraising schedule,” said Chaminda Wijetilleke, chair of the Project Peds Fundraising Committee, “and thrilled about the type of donors that we have on board.” “The two presidents give to organizations like the Fulbright Commission and the United Nations Foundation -- strong, well-managed NGOs,” Wijetilleke continued. “People should say to themselves: ‘The two presidents clearly recognize that Project Peds is going to get the job done. Let’s donate.’”

All involved with Project Peds are ecstatic about the donation and what it means for their effort. But the project still needs to raise $1.2 million in order to provide critical care equipment, supplies, medications and scholarship programs for the pediatric ward. The Project Peds Team has returned its attention to the remaining fundraising effort. “Project Peds still needs the support of concerned individuals and organizations,” said Wijetilleke.

For more information about donating to Project Peds, visit www.slprojectpeds.org.

Project Peds Mobilizes For Construction

Project Peds continues toward its fundraising target and is mobilizing for the actual construction of the Matara General Hospital pediatrics ward.

To lead construction and other ground operations on-site in Sri Lanka, Project Peds has established a Project Management Team, led by Naveen Pereira and Nikhil Narayan. “Our Project Management Team has the experience we need,” said Dr. Sanjay Daluvoy, Chairman of the Project Peds Operations/Project Planning Committee. He added, “They’ve done a great deal of work in Sri Lanka; they know how to keep costs low and how to work with government officials.”

The Project Management Team has been hard at work: partnering with the Sri Lankan government to finalize the area’s master plan for redevelopment and focusing on the operational details of a major construction project. Recently, the Sri Lankan government granted the Project Management Team a seat on the Master Plan Steering Committee. By including Project Peds in this way, the Sri Lankan government is allowing Project Peds to protect the interest and healthcare needs of children in the Master Plan, which will provide for a full overhaul of the healthcare delivery system in Matara and is expected to include provision for the construction of a new hospital in a different, more accessible location of Matara. Area children will be served by a pediatric ward that is linked to a modern hospital. “We have to wait for the master plan to be completed,” said Mr. Eric Hess, a CHP Executive and a co-founder of Project Peds, “but the prospect of building a pediatric ward that is linked to a modern hospital instead of an outdated one makes it worth the wait; construction will begin as soon as the team receives design and construction plan approval from the Sri Lankan government.” Hess added.

Project Peds: Small Beginnings, Big Mission

Although Project Peds is now managed in part by two leading American children’s hospitals, Childrens National Medical Center (CNMC) and Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh (CHP), it began as a small, personal effort by a few individuals.

In the aftermath of the tsunami, a pediatric cardiologist and a law professor traveled to southeastern Sri Lanka with two other concerned professionals. For Dr. Ratnayaka, who is of Sinhalese descent, and Professor Gulasekaram, who is of Tamil descent, the mission was to aid family and friends in their motherland. Although the two men come from ethnic groups that have long been at war, their passion for children’s issues have transcended conflict.

Their four-person team provided direct medical assistance at makeshift treatment centers along the southern coast. They brought school supplies and clothes to orphans on the decimated eastern shore, an area ravaged first by civil war, then by the tsunami.

Wanting to provide more than immediate relief, the group sought out long-term projects for improvement of pediatric health care. Based on location, potential, and community impact, the team decided to rehabilitate the pediatric ward at Matara General Hospital (MGH) in southern Sri Lanka. After returning to the U.S., the team assembled an impressive team of doctors, executives, lawyers and journalists from all corners of the globe to found World Children’s Initiative (WCI), whose mission is to establish standard-of-care pediatric health care delivery services throughout the developing world. Together with Children’s National Medical Center and Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, they launched Project Peds.

For more information, please visit www.slprojectpeds.org

For general information or inquiries regarding Project Peds, please write to: projectpeds@gmail.com or email@slprojectpeds.org. For media or press information, please contact Mr. P. Gulasekaram by email or by telephone at 212.998.6384.

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Rising Up A Year After The Tsunami

Multi-Ethnic Group of Young Professionals Volunteer to Resuscitate Children’s Health Care in Sri Lanka

November 2005 - In a year of devastating natural tragedies around the globe, on December 26th, millions will mourn the anniversary of the worst natural disaster in modern memory. On that day last year, a wall of water the height of a four-story office building with a wing-span of a thousand miles slammed into the coastal areas of several South Asian countries. In Sri Lanka the tsunami swallowed up whole fishing villages, killed off 75-member families without leaving a trace, and forever changed the island’s landscape.

As with nearly all tragedies, both natural and man-made, children were the worst affected. Orphaned and lonely, many stared forward at a lifetime of uncertainty and hardship. But before they could begin contemplating the long-term devastation, the country’s young innocents confronted a more immediate threat: lack of adequate health care.

To confront this threat, two of America’s most prestigious pediatric hospitals, Children’s National Medical Center (CNMC) in Washington, D.C. and Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh (CHP), have joined forces with World Children’s Initiative (WCI), to launch “Project Peds: Sri Lanka Tsunami Relief.” The Project seeks to resuscitate pediatric health care in Sri Lanka’s densely populated southern coast, a place and people left battered by the tsunami.

The specific focus of the Project is to completely rebuild and modernize the pediatrics ward at Matara General Hospital (MGH), the primary state-run acute-care teaching hospital in the southern province. The goal, however, is not to simply restore basic health services. The leaders of Project Peds believe that out of tragedy is born opportunity. According to WCI co-founder and Project Peds Operations Chief, Dr. Sanjay Daluvoy, “Project Peds is not just a project to rebuild a hospital, it is a bold effort to revitalize a region and rebuild a critical junction in Sri Lanka’s health care infrastructure.”

At MGH, Project Peds envisions an enhanced and progressive pediatric health care delivery system – greater in structure, greater in knowledge, and greater in scope than any other in this developing country. With the resources and expertise of two leading American pediatric institutions, the rebuilt wing at MGH will set the new standard-of-care, functioning as the future template for children’s health care delivery in Sri Lanka.

How it began: A personal story

The story behind Project Peds and WCI begins as a personal one. In the immediate aftermath of the tsunami, a young pediatric cardiologist and a law professor – former college roommates at Brown University – traveled with two other young professionals to the South and East of Sri Lanka. For Dr. Ratnayaka, a Sri Lankan American of Sinhalese descent, and Professor Gulasekaram, a Sri Lankan American of Tamil descent, the mission was to aid family and friends in their motherland. Although the two men come from ethnic groups that have been locked in South Asia’s bloodiest war for more than 20 years, their friendship and passion for children’s issues have transcended conflict. Their multi-ethnic team of volunteers provided direct medical assistance at makeshift treatment centers along the southern coast. They brought school supplies and clothes to orphans on the decimated eastern shore, an area ravaged first by war for the past two decades, then by the tsunami.

Wanting to do more than provide immediate direct assistance for the duration of their stay, the group sought out potential long-term projects for improvement of pediatric health care. Based on location, potential, and community impact, the team decided to rehabilitate the pediatric ward at Matara General Hospital (MGH) in southern Sri Lanka. After selecting the project, negotiating with the Sri Lankan Government, and returning to the U.S., the team of four recruited CNMC and CHP and assembled a band of more than 20 young professional volunteers -- doctors, executives, lawyers and journalists from all corners of the globe -- to launch their Project.

"There is a lot of good work being done in Sri Lanka by many different organizations” says Professor Gulasekaram, the Chair of Project Peds’ Communications Committee, “What sets us apart is that we are trying to transform a struggling pediatric ward in a tsunami-stricken area into the most sophisticated and efficient pediatric ward -- complete with a state-of-the-art teaching facility -- in the whole of Sri Lanka. MGH's pediatric ward will be a model for pediatric healthcare delivery in South Asia and elsewhere in the developing world. Our vision is a world where innovative healthcare is enjoyed by all people regardless of circumstance."

Life before the tsunami

Even before the tsunami, Matara General Hospital (MGH) operated well-above capacity. Its pediatric ward housed only 60 beds yet it served over 400 patients a month. Sick children were laid out on the hospital floor to accommodate the overflow. Conditions were unsanitary and basic medications such as cephalosporins were in short supply. Because of the lack of isolation units, patients with diarrhea were exposed to children suffering from other infectious diseases. With an in-hospital infection rate far surpassing tolerable levels for health care centers in developed countries, bringing a sick child to the hospital meant risk of additional ailments.

These and other deficiencies forced 10 to 15 children per day to board crowded buses and make the uncomfortable journey to hospitals over 2 hours away. After the tsunami, the coastal patient population, deprived of their local clinics and shanty hospitals, swelled at MGH’s gates. The century old pediatrics ward, already overburdened and under-resourced, could do little more than empathize with their suffering patient population. The best intentions and expert dedication of the medical staff at MGH’s pediatric ward were no match for its structural deficits.

Why Matara General Hospital?

Project Peds has focused on MGH for a number of reasons. First, MGH is in an expanding metropolitan area, thus creating the potential for wide ranging impact over a large patient population. Because of its central location, MGH will create job opportunities and stimulate Matara’s economy. Second, as a teaching hospital, MGH does and will train doctors from the country’s medical schools who will then use the innovative techniques learned at MGH to treat children throughout Sri Lanka. Third, MGH is far enough inland to survive and serve vulnerable coastal villages in the face of another disaster. In addition, the prognosis for MGH is good because it is the focal point of an international rehabilitation effort spearheaded by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Italian Civil Protection Department (ICPD). Finally, the structure and space available at the current site are optimal for reconstruction of state-of-the-art facilities.

In short the location, mission, and potential of MGH perfectly complement Project Peds’ bold vision for its rebirth.

The plan – WCI and partners are committed to raise $2 million

The Project Peds initiative plans in less than three years to raise $ 2 million, the amount needed to completely tear down MGH’s dilapidated pediatric ward and rebuild and reequip it from scratch. This ambitious goal mandates a massive publicity and fundraising campaign. Although MGH is a state run hospital, Project Peds intends to inject funds directly into reconstruction and into new equipment, while receiving essential support from the Sri Lankan government.

Project Peds, through a recently established branch of WCI in Sri Lanka, will use its funds to reconstruct a modern, three-story pediatric ward. The new building will expand capacity to 100 beds in two separate wards. It will house intensive care units and provide a separate area for patients with infectious diseases – no more will patients come to the hospital to heal broken bones only to leave with tuberculosis. ProjectPeds will provide medical equipment, drugs, and consumables that MGH currently lacks or has in short supply. These include hi-tech equipment like ultrasound and x-ray machines, but also basic, life-saving devices like inhalers.

As part of its transformation, the renewed MGH will house a Public Health Training Center on its third-floor. Based on best-practices models proven effective at CNMC, CHP and other leading institutions, the PHTC will include a teaching auditorium with state-of-the-art audio-visual equipment, a library with current texts and periodicals, computers with on-line medical resources, and study/conference rooms for medical and nursing students, medical staff, and associated medical workers such as midwives and social workers. Project Peds will finance scholarship grants and exchanges to ensure hands-on training at MGH’s new facilities. To match the expanded pediatric ward and higher standard of care, the Government of Sri Lanka has already committed itself to providing additional pediatric medical staff over the coming years.

Project Peds anticipates that the initial fundraising campaign in the United States will blend into and then give way to an execution phase in Sri Lanka. Project Peds hopes to raise $ 500,000 by mid-2006 at which time demolition and reconstruction of the pediatrics ward will start. By 2008, Project Peds expects that the pediatric ward will have standard of care equipment and an ample supply of medications. After 2008, Project Peds will remain involved at MGH. WCI, CHP, and CNMC will ensure that training, scholarship grants, and standard-of-care are maintained through periodic visits and aid.

Early successes for Project Peds, more to be done

In the 10 months since its inception, Project Peds has accomplished a great deal. Kaiser Permanente, an integrated health care organization based in Seattle, Washington, has contributed seed funding. Project HOPE, an established non-profit dedicated to world health care relief, has offered to help Project Peds deliver millions of dollars of in-kind donations, in the form of drug therapy and consumables, to Sri Lanka. WCI’s recently established branch office in Colombo is facilitating this process with Sri Lankan Customs officials and local hospitals.

Project Peds also recently renegotiated its existing Memorandum of Understanding with the Sri Lankan Ministry of Health. The expanded MOU will provide concrete and specific assurances of continued financial and human support by the Ministry for MGH. Based on several meetings with the Ministry, it is clear that the Sri Lankan Government is eager to aid Project Peds in its effort to revolutionize pediatric health care delivery in Sri Lanka.

Despite this progress, Project Peds will only succeed when it delivers the $ 2 million it needs to realize its vision. "Our capacity to provide expert administrative oversight and our strong roots in the South Asian American community and in Sri Lanka put us in a unique position to rebuild MGH's pediactrics ward,” says Dr. Ratnayaka who holds a post on Project Peds’ Steering Committee, “we aren't just going to get MGH's pediatric's ward on its feet, we will get the ward off and running as a facility that rivals those in the developed world. Our hope is that interested donors and organizations continue to recognize our potential and aid us in our mission.”

How to get involved

Project Peds continues to seek additional partners, volunteers, and financial donors. To learn more about Project Peds and ways you or your organization can be involved, please contact Mr. Gulasekaram, co-founder of WCI and Chair of Communications for Project Peds, at email@slprojectpeds.org or visit the ProjectPeds Web site at www.slprojectpeds.org.