MAGNA is a humanitarian organisation focused on providing health and nutrition aid during humanitarian catastrophes, conflicts and in the communities – we treat children and their families where it is the most needed. Our projects are formed on the basis of actual needs – we are in the places, where people need acute health aid. Thanks to our professional team and our experiences we can react quickly, do needs assessment and start providing health aid quickly and systematically.
Therefore we reacted on the biggest humanitarian occurrence in the last period – refugee crisis in Europe. Since the beginning of September we have been providing health care of children and their families who are on the run. After our short operation in Hungary we have provided health care in the refugee camp Opatovac on the serbian-croatian borders. Since 3rd November we operate in the newly built refugee centre Slavonski Brod in Croatia. Two health teams consisted of 4 doctors, 4 nurses, translators and auxiliary staff (in cooperation with the Croatian Ministry of Health) treat every day and night children and their families – daily we treat in average 600 – 800 patients. Providing of systematic health care during their way is vitally important. Health teams consisted of professionals and volunteers are taking turns in shifts and batches. MAGNA formulated medical standards on the basis of up-to-present experiences. The most frequent health problems are airways deseases, diarrhoea, foot injuries, sub-cooling as well as deterioration and complications of chronic deseases. Overall until now we have treated 35.000 people.
MAGNA gains the financial resources for its activities from individual donors as well as corporate and institutional donors.
Our projects last from 6 months till a few years, depending on their focus and actual situation. We treat in the field, we help to safe the lives on the spot. We cooperate together with doctors and medical workers not only from Slovakia but with different nationalities. When we have a look at all our projects, 95 % of our staff are local workers which contributes to the stability of our projects and sustainability of our aid. In all our projects in the world there are more than 500 workers.
In 15 years of its existence MAGNA has provided medical aid in three continents – countries like Nepal, South Sudan, Kenya, kenyan-somalian border, Democratic Republic of Congo, Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam, Philippines, Haiti, Nicaragua, India. MAGNA teams helped in the biggest humanitarian disasters – tsunami in south-east Asia, cyclon Nargis in Barma and Hayian in Philippines, after the devasting earthquake in Haiti and in Nepal. In the humanitarian catastrophes MAGNA focuses mainly on primary medical aid and psychosocial assistance. In our long-term projects we are focusing on HIV/AIDS treatment, we have been treating children patients for 13 years and thanks to our results there are also changes and streamlining of the National treatment directive in Cambodia. We have achieved a significant improvement in reducing child malnutrition in Democratic Republic of Congo, every month 11.500 children under 5 years old and almost 12.000 women benefit from our program. In the long term we are focused also on medical aid of sexual violence victims. In the year 2010 we opened our first clinic in the capital of Democratic Republic of Congo, where is a big problem of sexual violence. Today we provide aid to thousands of victims in 8 hospitals. About 80 % of our patients are children. We spread our programme also in South Sudan, where we activated a new clinic in the area of North Kapoeta. In South Sudan MAGNA operates large prevention programs and vaccination campaigns for children and women in refugee camps in Juba for 65.000 people.
So literally, we provide medical care here and now, thanks to you.