2016 . . . What a year it has been - Wayne Centrone

​It's hard to believe we're about to put an end to 2016. It has been a heck of a year for HBI. This was our 10th Anniversary Year and we hit the ground running at full pace.
 
As I reflect back - a couple of things truly stand out. Most important is the incredible work we've done to formalize the Ines Project. In 2016 we developed a manual and coalesced our team in Lima. To say the project has grown from a grass roots effort into a full-fledged program is a bit of an understatement. In fact, I would qualify 2016's influence on the Ines Project as transformative. I couldn’t be prouder of our progress on taking a program that was originally designed to care for one child and her family and has grown into a project that helps families with medically complex and fragile children develop self advocacy skills to direct their own care and develop their own futures.
 
Another project we transformed in 2016 was the Girasoles Sanos project. Originally developed as an online database for our long-standing partner Union Biblica to monitor the health of the boys living in the homes they support around Peru – the project has grown into a web-based health management system that allows for the monitoring and care prioritization for hundreds of extremely vulnerable children. We took a problem: how does an organization with a number homes scattered over a large geographic area, monitor the complex needs of the children in their care? And transformed the problem into a comprehensive solution: an Internet based health management system that allows for the monitoring of children across a number of complex variables (e.g. chronological age vs. school year enrollment). The Girasoles Sanos tool assures the most appropriate resources can be defined and delivered to the kids that need them the most in a timely manner. Essentially, we’ve developed a web-portal that allows programs to consider the health of the children they support from a very complete and holistic perspective. Essentially, it’s a technological safety net for extremely vulnerable children.
 
These are just two of the many programs and projects we worked on this year.  For more updates from HBI and our 2016 efforts - check out the PDF document at the end of this post.
 
As 2016 comes to an end, I want to thank everyone who blessed us with your generous contributions, volunteer hours and never-ending support. And, as we move closer and closer to 2017, I look forward to even bigger impacts in the year to come.  Stay tuned for a really big 2017!

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2016_accomplishments_health_bridges_international.pdf
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