OUR HISTORY

Health Goes Global grew out of an ingrained dedication to service in resource limited, remote corners of our world. While volunteering at a clinic in Nyeri, Kenya sisters Hannah and Geneva noticed how powerful prevention of disease was in underserved settings where the proper treatments were not always readily available. One staple of preventative medicine that was missing from this clinic was medical examination gloves.

According the World Alliance for Patient Safety informational resources, “It is widely recommended that health-care workers wear gloves” to reduce transmission of infection from health care worker to the patient, and vice versa. Medical gloves are commonly worn in physical exam settings, as well as situations where blood or bodily fluids are exposed, to reduce transmission of skin infections and blood borne pathogens.

Hannah & Geneva began brainstorming how they could possibly gather enough gloves to make a difference in Nyeri, in Kenya, in Africa, and eventually, globally.

While in school, Geneva noticed a surplus of laboratory gloves at the end of each semester. Each laboratory student is responsible for supplying his/her/ze own box of gloves and many of these students do not have an immediate, foreseeable use for the remaining, unused gloves at the end of the semester. They began placing collection boxes in the hallways at the end of the semester. They gathered and sorted the gloves by size and material (latex/non-latex, powdered, etc.) and repackaged them for distribution. Initially, these gloves were packaged into checked baggage and distributed by hand to clinics and hospitals in Nyeri, Kenya.

However, in order to make a greater impact they needed to partner with more healthcare facilities and needed an affordable way to transport gloves. In 2010, they partnered with Wings of Hope, a humanitarian aviation organization delivering medical supplies and care to over 40 countries. They delivered their first shipments of a few hundred boxes of gloves through Wings of Hope to Haiti, Belize, Costa Rica and Ecuador in 2011.

Since they have partnered with many more organizations in order to effectively and efficiently fulfill their mission. Below is a short film about a partnership with Foundation for International Medical Relief of Children in 2013.

As the quantity of donated gloves increased, Hannah and Geneva realized they would need additional resources in order to expand their fundraising potential. Hannah saw the need to legitimize the home-grown gloves project into a 501(c)3 tax-exempt identity, whereby allowing charitable donations to fund their growth. She became versed in the legal side of non-profit management. She filled out stacks of paperwork, wrote proposals, registered a bank account, designed a website, and certified the organization with the IRS. In 2012 Gloves Go Global was officially granted public charity status.