In Swaziland, programs to prevent HIV /AIDS focus on educating traditional healers and developing local resources such as the establishment of the AIDS Information and Support Center in 1992. In Malawi, HIV/AIDS prevention programs have worked with the national Malawian Hospital Association, religious groups, private industry, community groups, and schools to reach over one million people. A HOPE-sponsored AIDS Song Contest drew over 600 groups and individuals from all regions of Malawi. HOPE became the first private voluntary foundation to make a long-term commitment to helping improve health care in what was then the Soviet Union. The mission there began with providing emergency medical supplies to Armenian earthquake victims and ended with more than 3,000 children receiving rehabilitation treatment and the establishment of a system to teach rehabilitation specialists to care for children throughout Armenia.

With almost 12,000 HOPE-trained emergency personnel and volunteers, 24 fully equipped ambulances, a new 911 telephone system, and a residency program in emergency medicine, Costa Rica is now capable of responding effectively to day-to-day emergencies as well as to natural disasters. To help reform health care delivery in former Soviet bloc countries, HOPE developed health care management programs. In the first five years, more than 400 health care leaders received modern executive management training.

President George Bush asked Project HOPE to coordinate America's medical humanitarian assistance to the "New Independent States" (NIS) of the former Soviet Union. HOPE has contributed more than $275 million worth of urgently needed medicines, medical supplies, and equipment distributed throughout all 15 NIS republics. The Zablocki Center, a state-of-the- art ambulatory care facility at the Polish-American Children's Hospital, was consecrated by Pope John Paul II. During HOPE's 17-year effort in Krakow, more than 1,000 HOPE volunteers trained Polish health professionals in more than 22 pediatric specialties.

In Ecuador and Honduras, HOPE started an innovative program that combined community health improvement with income generation. By organizing women into "Village Health Banks," HOPE provided the means to make the women's small businesses prosper--enabling them to generate the income to put into practice the healthy living habits taught at bank meetings.

With the establishment of HOPE foundations in Britain, Germany, Switzerland, and Hong Kong, and the formation of advisory boards in Europe and Asia, HOPE is becoming a truly global organization. International commitments from like-minded donors of funds, materials, and professional services from all over the world enable HOPE to put more resources to work in more countries than ever before.

Construction of the 250-bed Shanghai Children's Medical Center accelerates with the completion of the exterior of the hospital and HOPE training programs for its staff intensify. Scheduled to open in 1998, the center will be China's major pediatric referral and teaching hospital and will serve more than 250,000 children a year.

Forty years after Project HOPE's founding in 1958, total program services worldwide will reach the one billion dollar mark--remarkable testimony to the voluntary spirit that HOPE has inspired and an inspiration for continued progress in the new millennium.