what, why and how
what we do:
wrap up africa llc’s tailors are generally family members of the pediatric patients and increasingly, cancer patients themselves. we teach tailoring skills and train our participants to make beautiful products, pay them a fair wage for what they create, and provide a market for what they produce. with the funds they earn, the tailors are able to meet many of the needs they face with a cancer diagnosis such as food, transportation, medical expenses and lodging.
we sell the beautiful products on-line and through our retail partners and ultimately profits are distributed to wrap up africa foundation to fund our support programs. our current core programs are a comprehensive treatment program, scholarship program for cancer survivors and children orphaned by cancer and mobile clinics to improve outcomes and reduce treatment costs, and a school support program.
why we do it:
dialog and support around healthcare in africa centers on hiv, malaria, and tb. cancer patients go largely unnoticed and underserved. a country of 27 million people, uganda has one of the highest rates of cancer in the world. the majority of our participants are the parents of children with burkitt’s lymphoma, the leading cause of pediatric cancer in equatorial africa. the responsibility for the costs of care, whether it is diagnostics or life-saving chemotherapy, rests entirely with the families.
the majority of ugandan’s live on less than a dollar a day making this is unaffordable. with treatment, 90% of these children would go on to live normal healthy lives. unfortunately, for most ugandan’s the cost of chemotherapy is out of reach, and consequently, the majority of patients go untreated and many die. we want to change these trends and help these children become cancer survivors.
how we do it:
wrap up africa llc trains our tailors to make skirts and pay them a fair wage for the skirts that they create. these skirts are then sold in resource-affluent countries with the net profits from the skirt sales channeled back to our supportive programs through the wrap up africa foundation. the programs we are currently developing include:
treatment program: we hope to provide chemotherapy, lab work, pain management, and palliative care medications to all pediatric patients that cannot afford treatment.
scholarship program: the costs associated with a cancer diagnosis are devastating to most ugandan families. even if support for treatment is provided, ancillary costs such as lodging, transport and diagnostics frequently decimate a family’s resources and children are withdrawn from school as the school fees have been applied towards meeting the above costs. we plan to offer scholarships to cancer survivors and children orphaned by cancer. providing chemotherapy is life saving and an education is critical to the child’s future success and happiness throughout that life.
school support program: this program is designed to help ugandan schools gain resources, train teachers, and other needed support by connecting classrooms in the usa with classrooms in uganda. we will publish an interactive blog for use in the classroom showing school children in the usa what is like to be a child in uganda, the challenges they face and how life is different for children in the developing world. the blog will be co-written by an american child living in uganda. we hope to give students real insight into the obstacles faced by children in the developing world, demonstrate how with a relatively small amount of money they can make a huge impact of the lives of others and build cultural understanding.
mobile clinics to reduce treatment costs and improve outcomes.