Mission Statement

The Laura Louie Hope Foundation, a Canadian charitable organization, has been created to provide cost-effective health-care to low income individuals (adults and children) in developing countries through community-based grassroots projects. Treatment will be aimed at but not exclusive to people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA).  The Foundation works with local doctors and health-care practitioners to provide a holistic program of treatment, education and lifestyle enhancement.  Practitioners from many arenas form part of a collaborative health-care team utilizing allopathic (orthodox) medicine and complementary therapies from long-standing and established systems of healing such as traditional Chinese medicine.  Educational programs in the treatment and prevention of disease and research studies to access the effectiveness of various forms of treatment are also important parts of the Foundation’s mandate.  
 
The Foundation encourages partnerships with other organizations with similar objectives to enhance the health of those living in resource poor areas by providing medical care, conducting stigma reduction and gender equality programs for people living with HIV/AIDS, initiating nutritional programs, creating gardening projects, and establishing income generation projects.
 
Currently the Foundation’s activities are focused on the Mae On Project in northern Thailand.  Here the Foundation has developed a pilot program to train medical staff at Mae On Hospital in acupuncture as adjunctive treatment for people living with HIV/AIDS.  It has also helped to create the only acupuncture clinic in a community-based hospital dedicated specifically to the treatment of HIV/AIDS patients.  In addition, the Foundation has conducted an evaluative study using quantitative and qualitative data to assess the efficacy of acupuncture on quality of life, symptoms of chronic HIV infection and side effects of anti-retroviral therapies.
 
The Foundation has a future venture targeted at treating people living with HIV/AIDS in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.  This project is due to start in 2007.  The program will be many-fold.  The first phase of the program will concentrate on training medical staff in acupuncture and nutrition.  The second phase of the project will be committed to the creation of an acupuncture clinic for HIV/AIDS patients.  In addition, the Foundation will collaborate with local medical staff and community members to establish innovative HIV/AIDS education and stigma reduction programs as well as garden projects.