Medical Ambassadors International (MAI)

As in the previous years, at Medical Ambassadors International (MAI) we continue to strive to improve quality, efficiency, and professionalism at all levels. We continue to persevere relentlessly with our ongoing work and in our efforts to grow and expand our CHE (Community Health Evangelism) program. We are currently in a total of 3,007 communities spread across 76 countries around word impacting a total population of 3.4 million people. Our efforts to grow the second line leadership in South Asia, the Caribbean, MENA (Middle East North Africa), and Southeast Asia are progressing well. Through the Capital Campaign that we launched in 2022, we plan to grow WIDER and STRONGER. This entails expanding into new regions and growing in existing ones. This growth work is progressing very well. We also continue to make the organization stronger by building the second line of leadership and improving capacity for better communications in the field through upgraded technology. The technical division is doing well, and our four new specialized programs and ongoing programs are doing well. These are: New special programs: Community Relief response, Trafficking prevention, the Medical Ambassadors International Academy (for staff capacity building), and Trauma healing. Ongoing special programs: Coffee 'Business as Mission', Micro Enterprise Development, Integrating people with disabilities into normal community life. In 2021 we launched special programs for use of Solar Energy for Agriculture, a program for Malaria control in Nigeria. Details about these programs can be found in our Healing Lives Fall 2022 magazine. We are now exploring the potential for introducing similar programs in other places. CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) partnerships with philanthropically-minded Corporate Sector companies is an area we continue to explore for the future. We do this as we continue to consider corporate sector partnerships to work with MAI as a means of drawing marketplace skills into play with our ministry for further quality and efficiency improvement. We hope that someday this will become a new source of revenue for supporting and expanding our ministry. Earlier changes in our training program that had to be modified due to Covid crisis, continue to be explored. Many of these training programs have now become virtual or hybrid efforts. This has often been a blessing in disguise as we have been able to have people from across the world facilitate training as well as have participants from across the globe. We continue to 'make wholistic disciples, who make wholistic disciples thus facilitating what we pray for in the Lord's prayer (Matthew 6:10) 'bring heaven to earth, one community at a time'. A Brief Overview of 2023 Our engagement with the Barnabas Group (TBG) has continued as we have worked closely with their advisory teams to improve our resource mobilizing strategy. This has done well as can be seen from our financial report later in this document. TBG has continued to help us sharpen our message and improve our marketing strategy. MAI's team of field CHE trainers continue to be effective, expanding their facilitation skills with community vision casting. They train CHE committees, CHE volunteers, and where the context determines, specialized CHE programs focusing on women's issues, families, men, children, micro-enterprise and the disabled. Our quest for new approaches continues to foster new relationships and partnerships with other agencies to train our lead trainers. Modified training approaches have been adapted, and we were able to facilitate more training programs than we had done in the past. In the year ahead, we have the following areas that we will focus on: We will continue to strengthen the new communities that we have recently added to our program and work towards strengthening their capacity through training and regular follow up. The year ahead will also be one of consolidating some of the partnerships we have established, with special emphasis on working together as examples of effective Christian partnerships and collaboration. We are diligently working towards creating 'transformational hubs' in the field as working models for emulating and multiplying. We seek the Lord's face and ask that He continues to open our eyes to see what He is doing so we can partner with Him in the expansion of His kingdom! The new collaboration initiated by MAI in 2008 now operates under separate non-profit registration to form a network of many other organizations (Global CHE Network). This network has become a forum for sharing ideas but is not owned by any of the collaborating organizations and continues to grow by leaps and bounds. Members represent 384 NGOs and FBOs, and 42,962 workers in 6,729 communities across 121 countries who have now agreed to help each other implement CHE in their areas. MAI, along with these other organizations, have all been able to reach far beyond our own organizational limitations because of this healthy partnership. The extensive CHE curriculum has also been augmented with updated lessons on disease diagnosis and treatment including new diseases like Covid and monkey pox. Lessons on water collection and purification, agriculture, animal husbandry, marketing, micro-enterprise, savings groups, simple reproductive technology, ecology, literacy, marriage and family relationships, parenting skills, and local church leadership training continue to grow and be used extensively. These lessons are available to all members of the CHE network who have partaken of the basic TOT training. As a result, at the local village or urban community level, well over 52,442 volunteer Community Health Evangelists/Educators have been trained by MAI directly and through the many partners that MAI has. Reports suggest that many times this number of people are active in Bible study and Bible storytelling/discussion groups. Practical application of what the Bible teaches is transforming the daily lives of thousands of families and transforming whole communities around the world. 90% of the impact of MAI is generated through the efforts of unpaid volunteers around the world, trained and encouraged by MAI paid staff. The contribution of volunteers globally is enormous, and this has only been possible due to the unique model MAI has of being able to mobilize, motivate, and train volunteers, who in turn train generations of other volunteers, making Holistic disciples who make Holistic disciples. Many organizations pay staff to deliver similar services of community development. However, MAI teaches people to make improvements in their own communities, as volunteers. In essence, we 'teach them to fish, rather than give them a fish'. And then, we go beyond that, by training them on how to maintain the village ponds so that many families have fish to eat. This helps them to have sustainable livelihoods and allows their programs to be sustainable after we leave and can be more easily copied by others. This is another reason that the program has replicated extensively. In turn, if MAI could include the value of these volunteer services in its calculation of overhead versus program expenses, its overhead percentage would decrease radically. With God's help and enabling, the final phase of the Capital Campaign launched in July 2022 ended in December 2023 and achieved its cash pledge and Legacy planning goals. This will enable MAI to do a lot more in more new areas to continue to grow the ministry WIDER & STRONGER. Our ongoing efforts to keep our donors informed, engaged and educated about good transformational development continues through our regular newsletters, as well as through our special 'Healing Lives' magazine. In 2023 we brought out two specialized issues of healing lives focused on contemporary development issues so that our donors and partners also get a better understanding of our field ministry. MAI was selected for the 6th time in a row for being among the 'Top ten organizations with a high return on investment for the Kingdom of God' httpsroiministryorgmedicalambassa...