TGF and Global Development

Sub-Saharan Africa has 24% of the global disease burden but only 3% of the healthcare workforce worldwide.

In September 2000 at the United Nations Millennium Summit, world leaders agreed to set measurable goals and targets for 2015 aimed at attacking many of the challenges facing the world.  At the end of 2015, the job was not finished and now global development efforts move toward a more sustainable goals.

The Gretta Foundation’s work encompasses many of the new Sustainable Development Goals (previously Millennium Development Goals) as it works to increase the global nurseforce and bolster healthcare capacity and improve patient care and outcomes.

A significant phenomenon undermines all efforts in developing countries to stabilize health dilemmas such as poor maternal health, high child mortality rates, and diseases like HIV/AIDS. It’s the global shortage of healthcare’s most precious resource: nurses and midwives.

Nowhere is this more evident than in Africa. According to the WHO World Health Report 2006, Sub-Saharan Africa has 24% of the global disease burden but only 3% of the healthcare workforce worldwide. The Gretta Foundation’s work is currently focused in Africa.

Nursing and midwifery scholarship recipients, or Gretta Scholars, attend accredited programs in their country’s system of education. Each Gretta Scholar is provided with an annual tuition, room and board, living allowance, books, school uniforms, shoes, and clinical supplies, such stethoscopes.

In repayment for the scholarship, graduating scholars will serve in their country’s clinics and hospitals for a predetermined period of time, commensurate with each year of academic assistance.

Nursing and midwifery scholarships also empower women by providing the skills to enter into an indispensable and remunerative careers. In support of the SDGs, The Gretta Foundation helps women earn an income, empowering them economically and socially for more control over their lives and security for their children.

Nurses and midwives are positive role models and instruments of change that empower their communities by caring for the ill while providing real hope for disease prevention and cure. A nurse’s and midwives’ impact on the world is inestimable.