Organizations: MAP International
Across the globe, more than half a million children die from dehydration due to diarrhea each year.
"When we are sick with minor ailments in the United States, we can go around the corner to a pharmacy, but much of the world lacks over-the-counter medications we take for granted," says Steve Stirling, president and CEO of MAP International, a health and humanitarian nonprofit with global headquarters in Brunswick. "So people die from causes that are easily preventable."
Each year, MAP International provides more than $330 million in essential medicines to 25 million people in more than 100 countries. In fact, wherever there are news reports of trouble, MAP International likely is on the ground, working to alleviate suffering. The organization sent $16 million in medicines and 33,000 personal protective suits to contain the recent Ebola outbreak, it was on the ground in Nepal soon after the earthquakes hit and it currently provides relief to refugees from terrorist attacks in Syria and Nigeria. Closer to home, its medical missionaries worked to treat Americans affected by Hurricane Katrina.
The Christian-based organization started in the Chicago area in 1954 but relocated to the Georgia coast in 1985 for better access to ports. Less than one percent of its budget goes to administrative costs.
“MAP’s important mission is very personal to me,” says Stirling, who was born in South Korea. He contracted polio and lived in an orphanage until he was adopted by an American family. “Although I know God has blessed me in many ways, my life would have been different if I’d had access to the polio vaccine as a child.”
