In the 1990s PPFA launched an initiative, funded by private foundations, to pair domestic PP affiliates with family planning projects in the developing world. Global Partners goal was to raise awareness in the US of the need for family planning around the world and to provide opportunities for our partners to develop programs that would best meet their unique needs.
In 2001, PP of Stark County became a Global Partner and decided to work with maternal child health programs in Jamshedpur, India. The Timken Company, Stark County's largest employer, had already established a solid relationship with the people of Jamshedpur through a bearing factory they operated there. The local community was receptive to the idea of a Global Partners program and eagerly embraced the concept. Planned Parenthood of Greater Cleveland, an experienced surgical provider, joined the partnership to help provide training opportunities in medical care and fundraising for professional staff from Jamshedpur.
The partnership is with the Family Planning Association of India (FPAI), a volunteer run NGO with an office in Jamshedpur in the state of Jharkhand, where socio-economic indices for women's health and education are among the lowest in India. The primary goal of this partnership was to help FPAI realize their dream of building a clinic to serve tribal women in rural areas where the need for contraception and sterilization are very great. That dream has now been realized through joint fundraising efforts. The clinic opened in October 2010 and Betsey Kaufman, the former CEO of PP of Greater Cleveland visited there in January 2011. She had many wonderful experiences during her visit to the clinic but perhaps most amazing to her was that in one day, the surgery schedule included 98 women, all of whom received tubal ligations
Because the true reward of this partnership is the lasting benefit it brings to women and families, the next step was to assist FPAI in making the clinic self-sustaining. To help achieve that goal, Planned Parenthood of Northeast Ohio's Global Partners Fund made a final gift to subsidize the Medical Director and Outreach Coordinator, positions that are directly linked to the success of establishing a self-sustaining clinic with a reputation for excellence. Work continued to assist the staff and volunteers of the FPAI clinic in their efforts to raise the funds necessary to finish the project and install an elevator in this bright modern three story medical facility.
