23 Mar 2017 The Basque Government grants a 180,000 USD aid to We Are Like You

The Basque Agency for Cooperation for Development recently granted a 180,756 USD aid to the We Are Like You project, aimed to improve the care of mental health and the social-sanitary environment in Monrovia, Liberia.

The Agency, a public body of the Basque Government, allocated this amount in its last 2016 call for funding of grants and emergency aids, which comprises a total amount of 4,896,687 USD.

Mikel Tellaeche, CEO at Aita Menni Hospital and Head of Health Programs of the Saint Benedict Menni Health Center in Monrovia, has shown the satisfaction of Sisters Hospitalers for this contribution, “which sums up one third of the project´s total budget and lead us to be very optimistic on the prompt start into operation of the Step-Down Unit for mental health patients”.

The call from the Basque Agency comprises two types of interventions: on one hand, projects for emergency aid, aimed to provide goods and services as quickly as possible to guarantee the survival and relief the suffering in case of disaster; on the other, less urgent humanitarian projects focused on setting the foundations for development, human rights and peace building.

The aid granted to We Are Like You belongs to this last group, as it aims to improve, after the 2014 Ebola virus outbreak, the social-sanitary environment of the area where the Saint Benedict Menni Health Center is located, and to settle a specialized care unit for people with mental illness and intellectual handicaps, with the knowledge of Spain´s Aita Menni Hospital.

Twenty five projects for 20 countries were presented to the 2016 call of these grants, opened in April. Four of the projects didn´t make the cut, in one case due to a low score assigned by the technical team at the Agency, and the other three due to the lack of funds.