Global & Domestic Engagement

Service and solidarity within our home communities and beyond borders is an essential component of our Providence Mission. Within an interconnected world, we partner to ensure a more equitable future in support of the common good.
Person from Medical Teams International smiling beside another person with their arm around them.

Regardless of national boundaries, compassionate service to all has been a part of the legacy of the Sisters of St. Joseph and the Sisters of Providence since they began their work.

Since 2012, the Providence Global and Domestic Engagement (GDE) department has partnered to make health impact through programs and service that honor the leadership, expertise, and goals of communities around the globe. We live our vision of health for a better world by responding root causes of disparities and working through local partnership to redress the health inequity created by historic colonialism.

In addition to our partnerships, we continue to grow our support for water, hygiene, and sanitation (WASH) initiatives at the community and health facility level. Through program sponsorship, service, and solidarity with international partners and within our home communities, we stand with our dear neighbor to promote a more just world.

Guatemala

Community health, health systems strengthening, & surgical care

Providence partners with Medical Teams International to support maternal and child health in El Quiché, Guatemala. Together, our programming reduces rates of diarrhea and pneumonia, improves the health knowledge and practices of pregnant women and mothers, and strengthens communities concerning issues of health and sanitation.

Additionally, Providence health care professionals support the Guatemalan Ministry of health workers through assessments, trainings, and supportive supervision on Integrated Management of Childhood Illnesses and Emergency Obstetric and Newborn Care protocols. These protocols are the primary interventions for averting maternal and neonatal mortalities.

Since the onset of COVID-19, Providence & Medical Teams have developed a telementoring program so that clinicians volunteering with Medical Teams can provide ongoing provider to provider support for Guatemala Ministry of Health Staff. 

Providence also partners with La Buena Semilla to increase food security in Chicaman, and partners with Faith In Practice to provide surgical care, procedures, and ambulatory resources to underserved individuals from across Guatemala who would otherwise not have access to care.


Mexico
Providence mission group in Mexico

Safe & dignified housing

In Mexico, our partnership is focused on safe and dignified housing with Esperanza International and ensures families have a safe place to raise their children and grow their dreams.

Esperanza and Providence share a common understanding of the value of safe and dignified housing and the importance of getting upstream in responding to the needs of vulnerable communities. Esperanza service trips focus on working in solidarity with Tijuana residents by participating in a community or home construction project while learning about the US-Mexico border, immigration, and human rights.

As a system, Providence is deepening our partnerships with Esperanza by focusing in a specific community called Lomas del Valle.

Medical people examining man's chest who is lying on a table

Strengthening this generation and the next of health care providers

Providence Global and Domestic Engagement works in partnership with Seed Global Health, the Malawi College of Medicine and the Swedish First Hill Family Medicine Residency Program to facilitate bi-directional learning between Malawian and PSJH clinicians to increase the pipeline of high-quality primary care clinicians.

This partnership works toward the goal of redressing global health inequities by increasing the pipeline of high-quality primary care clinicians through medical education in a country with an extraordinarily high burden of disease. 

Our sponsorship includes:

  • Residency rotations in rural Malawi - PSJH medical residents do four-week onsite rotations to learn tropical medicine and mentor Malawian medical students
  • On the ground faculty - One full time US faculty person on the ground in rural Malawi supports the learning of Malawian clinicians and PSJH residents
  • US based family medicine immersion - A six-week family medicine “Collaboratory” with Swedish First Hill Family Medicine Residency program for Malawian Family Medicine registrars (residents) who gain clinical and academic knowledge in primary care and global health leadership 

If you would like to learn more about our program in Malawi, listen to our podcast.

Health strengthening through telementoring

Capacity building through global telehealth is key to health for a better world. Digital service positions volunteers from Providence serving with partner global non-profits to respond to urgent clinical training needs in rural, underserved geographies during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.

Through telehealth partnerships with Seed Global Health and World Telehealth Initiative, Providence reimagines our commitment to our dear neighbor and creates a pathway for engaging caregivers in service that empowers health care providers around the world. Our volunteers strengthen sustainable and culturally appropriate, patient-centered care delivery while learning about local best practices from clinicians in the other countries.

Our telementoring work in Africa includes:

  • Strengthening emergency medicine in Uganda - Through Project Echo, volunteers with Seed Global Health provide clinical mentoring to support a network of up to 1,000 Emergency Medicine clinicians in remote, low-resource areas.
  • Serving and learning from clinicians in Nigeria’s Opoji Kingdom - Working with World Telehealth Initiative and using Teladoc technology, our clinicians will be matched with Nigerian health professionals in the Opoji Kingdom. Our growth into this region honors the past service of Providence heritage communities in Nigeria.

Additional telementoring efforts are also taking place with our partner Medical Teams International in Guatemala. Visit our Latin America partnerships section to learn more.

People working in the woods

Global & Domestic Engagement (GDE) carries the goal of activating all Providence caregivers in system-wide strategies that contribute to our organizational commitment to serve vulnerable populations. Key aspects of this strategy are the Action Hub and Domestic Immersions.

The Action Hub

Through our internal digital platform, the Action Hub, GDE connects caregivers to highly impactful virtual and in-person volunteer opportunities across communities. The wide variety of caregiver activation and engagement opportunities on the Hub represent efforts driven by Philanthropy, Environmental Stewardship, Advocacy, and Providence Mission leadership.

The Action Hub is just one of the ways that caregivers can help further the Providence vision of health for a better world and contribute to building resiliency across communities at home and abroad. Only through partnership can we connect our caregivers directly with communities to accompany them in addressing the needs they themselves identify as priorities.

This digital resource is championed by our Activation Networks—caregiver volunteers who work to elevate opportunities for community engagement outside the walls of our hospitals and clinics.

Domestic Immersions

Local immersions form a part of our commitment to community health. Grounded in service and learning from community members, local immersions are a day of volunteerism planned in partnership with local non-profits.

Immersions include the following components: direct service, education, and reflection activities to connect the heart and mind in service to the common good.

Caregivers learn about community partners while connecting to a key system and regional priority such as housing, the environment, food insecurity, education, or migration.