The nonprofit Prevention International: No Cervical Cancer does amazing work, traveling to developing countries to set medical clinics up with the training and equipment they need to conduct screenings for and treatment of cervical cancer. The organization works throughout Africa, Central America and Latin America and has recently begun working in India as well to provide screenings that would otherwise not be possible.
The problem? Their work absolutely requires being on the ground and working with people directly, and it can be expensive to do that. When Taylor found out about British Airways’ Face-to-Face program, she decided that applying was worth a shot, and the effort paid off. Here she tells us more about the work PINCC does and how the Face-to-Face grant was able to further that work.
Why is travel such a big part of what you do?
What we do is train medical people to do cervical cancer screening and treatment for prevention, which is just not done in the countries we’re working in. They just don’t have the capacity. We’re establishing these centers in rural areas so people don’t have to travel days to get to a capital to even do a screening much less receive treatment. It’s 100% required that we be there, on the ground, to do that work.
What made you apply for the Face-to-Face grant?
We do a lot of travel and British Airways has always been a favorite for trips to Africa and India, so when I saw this campaign I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, that would be perfect.’ At first I thought they were looking for big companies, but when I found out we’d be eligible, I thought, ‘Well, we won’t get it if we don’t even apply.’
How have you been able to use the grant?
It has been so helpful for us. The first trip we took was to Africa, and we brought not only the two staff people we need to do training, but then also two of our member donors. They loved flying business class with British Airways, and being able to see our work in person – it made them big supporters and we got a big donation out of that. So that was really wonderful. The four of us all flew business class, and, of course, we don’t fly business class normally .Not only that but they gave us a very nice printer/scanner piece and that has become the center of the office – everyone uses it, and we can use it remotely, which is really great.
What are some of the additional benefits that have come as a result of being able to travel more this year?
It allowed us to open up a whole new section of Kenya so that we could go to these new sites that we had been trying to get to. We were able to supply them with the equipment they needed. We had also just started our India campaign and were able to go and train a large part of the rural province of Andrapradesh in south central India, near Bangalore. We trained a mobile service that goes out to rural villages. Now that entire region has that screening capacity and the equipment to do it.
