Bangladesh
GHM in Bangladesh
Global Health Ministries has been sending shipments of supplies and medical equipment to LAMB (Lutheran Aid to Medicine in Bangladesh) Hospital in Bangladesh since 2004. First aid kits were given to village volunteers who participated in basic first aid and disease prevention training, and then took their new skills back to their communities.
God brings vision and opportunity together all the time, and the story of Steve and Nancy Laible in Bangladesh is such a story. Newly retired, the Laibles traveled to offer short-term service in a remote area of northwest Bangladesh close to LAMB Hospital. They saw a deep need for children to have access to education. By 2009, with financial support from Global Health Ministries and Nativity Lutheran Church in St. Anthony Village, Minnesota, they were able to help open what was called “Livingstone School,” creating opportunities to change the lives of children from surrounding villages.
Today, 200+ children attend Livingstone School, where fees are heavily subsidized or altogether waived for the poor. Health education is fully integrated into the curriculum. It has become a gathering place where people from local villages come to receive information to improve their health and the well-being of their families and neighbors. This ministry of improving community health through education, training and disease prevention continues.
Data from WHO, and The World Bank
Poninna in 2007
Meet Poninna
Poninna grew up in a mud and bamboo house on railroad right-of-way land in northwest Bangladesh near LAMB Hospital and Community Health Project. Educational opportunities for children like Poninna were limited, but the LAMB project had a small school, and support groups like Nativity Lutheran in St. Anthony, Minnesota had a scholarship program. Poninna was able to attend the LAMB School, and through perseverance and hard work, she was able to progress through twelve years of education. In 2019, Poninna was admitted to the LAMB Nursing Institute. She is now in her second year of a three-year program in nursing training. It is her hope to, one day, help others as a professional nurse at the LAMB hospital. Because of the LAMB hospital and support for health care by Global Health Ministries, young women, like Poninna, can gain the skills needed to be part of the ‘hands that heal’.
Poninna today
