The Global Medical Relief Fund, Inc.

I am applying for the Elevate Prize because the three stated objectives resonated with me deeply. I founded the Global Medical Relief Fund in 1997 with the exact hope of elevating life opportunities for children around the world who have been left behind in the wake of natural disasters, wars and other violence, and/or illness. We focus on targeted problem-solving by bringing children to the U.S. to receive medical and surgical treatment unavailable to them at home. While multiple child and parent/legal guardian pairs are staying in our Dare to Dream House during treatment, we also work to elevate their intercultural understandings of each other. 

If I were fortunate enough to be chosen, I would use the Elevate Prize funding to bolster our capacity to welcome the children whose treatment we had to postpone last year during the pandemic, in addition to the children we originally scheduled for this year. Our capacity to bring each child and their parent/legal guardian to the U.S. depends on our ability to pay for round-trip transportation (usually international), to maintain our home on Staten Island or secure other accommodations, and to provide meals and other daily necessities. 

I was working as a medical technician and I have always loved writing music and singing; these parts of my life connected in 1995 when my friend asked me to write and perform a song at a fundraiser for school supplies for children in war-torn Bosnia. At this event, I met the UN Ambassador from Bosnia and at a follow-up meeting, he showed me a letter from Kenan, a Bosnian boy who had lost both arms and one leg when he stepped on a landmine. I felt an overpowering—and empowering—call to action. I recruited airlines, hospitals, physicians, and prosthetic companies to donate their services to Kenan, and within two months, I was welcoming Kenan and his mother at JFK airport. They stayed in my home with me for four months while Kenan received his three new prosthetic limbs and a new lease on life. In helping Kenan, I realized my mission in life; it inspired me to found GMRF in 1997, but it truly feels like Kenan and GMRF found me. I have remained steadfast in my vision and purpose since then, and my goal is forever to help heal as many children as I can.

I founded GMRF to help overcome the barriers to critical healthcare for children. We help children around the world, on an individual basis. Between wars, natural disasters, illness, and other causes of our children’s plights, there is an untold number of children in need worldwide. This magnitude often feels overwhelming, but my mindset has always been to approach this level of tragedy and need one child at a time (and that’s our motto). Our sequence of operations is as follows: at no cost to our families, we 1) identify a child in need with the help of hospitals, grassroots organizations, and others who reach out to us; 2) arrange travel to and from the U.S. for the child and one parent/legal guardian; 3) coordinate with local hospitals, clinics, doctors, and prosthetic companies to provide medical and surgical care and prostheses; and 4) provide housing, food, love, and other necessities. A fifth critical element of our program is that our staff works in the Dare to Dream House; this direct proximity allows us to build meaningful relationships with the families living here, so that we may better support them during such a stressful time.

GMRF strives to overcome the gap between the healthcare resources of our Allies in Care and the desperate need of the children we serve. Other organizations are also working to bridge this divide, which is fantastic because there are so many children in need around the world and here at home. Our work is unique because it is all-inclusive, whereas other similar organizations take a more piecemeal approach. We coordinate every step of each child’s medical journey, from helping their family with government travel documents to welcoming them into our Dare to Dream House. Ensuring such constancy is essential to alleviating anxiety, particularly because we often work across a language barrier. 

Our capacity to provide our own housing is vital to our work because it allows us to cultivate personal, hands-on relationships with our families, so that we can continuously monitor and respond to their needs, medical or otherwise. Another unique and crucial component of our mission at GMRF is that we pledge continued support for each child until they turn 21, at which point we will help them find further medical care. All together, we have welcomed children back for over 1,200 follow-up visits, often for prosthetics refittings.

A child’s journey with GMRF begins when we learn of their plight, including through grassroots organizations on the ground and hospitals in the U.S. We coordinate with U.S. hospitals and clinics, help fill out necessary travel documents, and purchase plane tickets for the child and one parent/legal guardian. When the pair arrives in the U.S., we provide transportation to their housing accommodations (usually our Dare to Dream House) and throughout their stay, we provide all meals, toiletries, and any other daily necessities. In addition to arranging transportation to medical appointments, we assist with postoperative care as much as possible. 

With each child who returns home with new physical abilities and/or a new sense of self-confidence, we know we are having an impact on humanity. Just as I felt saved by helping Kenan, we are all—staff, board members, and volunteers—enriched and changed for the better by helping these children. Each step, from identifying children in need to performing their surgeries, nurtures the humanity of each person involved. Most importantly, we witness first-hand our children’s renewed, or even entirely new, potential to lead a fulfilling life and make a difference in their communities and the world.