Center for Health Market Innovations (CHMI)

Programs

Take Heart Association Project (THAP)

last updated Sep 27, 2011

Overview

Implementing organization: 
Take Heart Association
Legal Status: 
Private (unspecified)
Year Launched: 
1992
Stage: 
Existing/expansion stage
Income Level of Target Population: 
Bottom 20%, 20-60% (lower to lower-middle)

Funding

Primary Source of Funding: 
Donor
Additional Source(s) of Funding: 
In-kind contributions
Funders: 
Individual donors, Individuals

Scale

Personnel Employed: 
10-49
Number of Clients Served: 
THAP has sponsored 120 children to undergo heart surgery many from the poorest areas surrounding Nairobi, Kenya - to undergo successful heart surgery in Kenya, India, Italy and the United States.
Summary: 

The project assists needy children with heart ailments to access surgery and other medical treatment, facilitating and coordinating medical support programs for the undeserved and marginalized families so as to restore health, hope and happiness.

Program goals/rationale: 

More than 10,000 babies are born in Kenya with a congenital heart defect each year. However, there is no dedicated congenital heart program in all of Africa. Since many families lack access to modern medical care, many of these children die needlessly in their early childhood years. The sole objective of THAP is to reduce and alleviate pains and death to young underprivileged and disadvantage children arising from heart related complications.

Key program components: 

Most beneficiaries, especially the very poor, are exposed to harsh environmental conditions when they leave hospital, at a time when their health is very delicate as a result of surgery and an inability to afford anti coagulant drugs, without which their conditions could reverse or worsen. THAP is therefore involved in ensuring the patients get the medicine on their prescriptions and have access to other basic needs that pertain to their recovery. Each patient receives post-operative care from THAP for two years.

The organization arranges for low-income Kenyan children and young adults to undergo heart surgery in Kenya, India, Italy and the United States.

For the poorest of families in Kenya whose children suffer from congenital heart defects and rheumatic heart disease, Take Heart Association Project is currently the only grassroots organisation of its kind assisting in raising funds and negotiating the maze of paperwork and logistical procedures associated with obtaining the needed life-saving surgeries for their children, as well as post-operative care.

Program history: 

Peter Mbogo Kamau, following the death of his close family member from rheumatic heart disease, founded THAP in Kenya in 1992. He turned his grief to action, devoting himself full-time to helping the thousands of patients who suffer from heart defects and disease.THAP was established to assist children from struggling backgrounds ,whose parents/guardian are unable to raise necessary funds for their ailing children to access medical treatment.

THAP was officialy registered in 1996 as non governmental organization in Kenya under section 10 of the Non - Governmental Organization Co-ordination act and in 2002 as a tax exempt 501(c)3 non-profit organization in the United States..

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