Public Health

Photo: Thatcher Cook for Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps addresses all health issues with the same basic, effective, and outcome-oriented approaches. In all our work we involve a full range of players, including households, communities, health care facilities and local government, because the greater the participation the greater the success. We prioritize basic interventions that are cost-effective and that sustain after Mercy Corps leaves, so our work lives on long after we have left. Through use of a participatory model, the people we serve become co-implementers of projects, because we believe as stakeholders they have a fundamental right to involvement. Lastly, wherever possible, we integrate health programming into programming addressing other vital issues, forming symbiotic relationships between health and microfinance initiatives, for example, wherein multiple goals are forwarded within a single programming effort.