The beginning Ever since I was young I loved seeing everyone live a life of hope, health, and happiness. I was deeply saddened to see so many people living in poor conditions, lacking food, a life filled with illness and fear. These situations often led to families running out of food and unable to afford medical help (with all its consequences), distressing situations. By experiencing this around me, my determination to help those in the highest grew in mind and heart.
When I was in primary school, I started dreaming of caring for the sick so that I could help at least some of the poor people with my knowledge and skills. These dreams kept on following me in high school and college and eventually became a health professional.
The need for help How hard as it sounds, I have seen that sick people are abandoned by their families since they couldn’t afford the medical treatments, which often led to fatal consequences. This needs to change! I believe that all people deserve a chance to be treated. The financial situation of a family shouldn’t be of importance when it comes to healthcare. When visiting some of the orphanages such as Msimba Orphanage in Mikumi Morogoro and Mother Theresa of Calcuta Center in Tabora, I realized the importance of helping even more at a community level.
In 2019 I told Marin about the idea of setting up a hospital to provide affordable treatment to the poor. Marin and I worked together in 2017 at ST. Kizito hospital in Mikumi. From the time we had there, I knew that she would be a perfect partner for this incredible project. We share a dream, vision and achieve results!
Our impact Since then, we registered Martus Foundation and recently started providing medical aid grants to poor families by giving out iCHF insurance cards. I feel so happy that we can start making a difference in the lives of these people! It is definitely not enough yet. With the help of the community development officers, social welfare officers, and the iCHF coordinators we can identify the people in the highest need. We have developed a special questionnaire to indicate the problems. Seeing the number of families that really need our help, makes me sad but at the same time it motivates me since it means that our help is really needed!
Families who have received health insurance cards provided by Martus Foundation have been able to get the medical treatment they have needed (sometimes for years!). Their general living conditions have changed, as they are happier and financially more flexible as the costs of medical treatments could now be spent on other aspects of life.
I’m very happy to play a role in the impact we can make by providing the insurance cards. Not only the individual families will benefit from this program but the community as a whole will eventually benefit from better health as the productivity will increase and the death rate will lower which contributes to a more stable (economic) condition in the community.
I can’t wait to have an even bigger impact on the community! I want to thank all of you who come forward to help us achieve the goals of our organization so that we can finally have a healthy prosperous society regardless of the background.
Below you see some pictures of Fortunatus bringing the insurance card to the first families supported by Martus Foundation! Would you like to see more of these happy family portraits? For only 20 euros you can help an entire family, please check out how you can help here. Your help is needed!
Fortunatus shows the iCHF card
Thanks to your help, this family of 13 has one year access to healthcare facilities.