Communities Without Borders

Background

The Brockton Neighborhood Health Center is one of the more successful and rapidly growing health centers in Massachusetts. It serves a largely disadvantaged population in Brockton and surrounding towns. Many of the clients and employees are Haitian or Cape Verdeans from Africa, so when Dr. Bail approached the employees to adopt a community in Zambia to support the education of children, many immediately understood the importance of this project and were willing to give support. BNHC became affiliated with the Bauleni Family Support Home in Lusaka run by the Society for Women and AIDS in Zambia (SWAAZ).

The employees at BNHC are hard-working and sincere though not at all affluent themselves. Many of them came from large families where it was difficult to educate the children. Early-on one of the social workers suggested that interested employees could request a small amount be deducted from their paychecks to support the education of African orphans. This meant that there would be a regular source of support, and a number of employees have continued to donate in this way over some 10 years.

Last year Tim Comeaux one of our excellent social workers began to work with a teen group called “United Voices”. Many of these kids came from poor backgrounds themselves, but they were really interested to learn about the lives of African kids their own age. Tim arranged for a very successful exchange of letters and pictures between the 2 communities. The teen-aged kids in Bauleni were distinctly thrilled to learn about their peers in the US.

In the News

The following is an excerpt from an article in the Brockton Enterprise about the partnership between Communities Without Borders and the Brockton Neighborhood Health Center. The original article can be found here.

Brockton Neighborhood Health Center workers pay for Zambian children to go to school
December 26, 2007

By Kyle Alspach BROCKTON ENTERPRISE STAFF WRITER

In Zambia, an African country hit hard by the AIDS epidemic, 50 youngsters can go to school thanks to employees at the Brockton Neighborhood Health Center.

About 20 to 25 employees of the health center allow a portion of their paychecks to support the youngsters, according to Dr. Richard Bail, a primary care physician who works part-time at the center. The money pays for school uniforms, supplies and fees for the children, who are all orphans who have lost parents to AIDS.

“Zambia has been one of hardest-hit countries by AIDS,” Bail said. “Almost every household is affected.” It costs about $100 per child to send the children to school, he said. They live in Bauleni, a settlement located just outside Zambia’s capital city, Lusaka.

Bail said Brockton health center employees have been supporting orphans there since 2000. The contribution is especially significant because most of the Brockton employees are far from wealthy, Bail said.

Bail, a Whitman native who now lives in Newton and whose physician practice is based in Watertown, was inspired to start the Zambia effort while working as a consultant in the country for UNAIDS, the organization responsible for the United Nations’ response to HIV/AIDS.

Bail said he is continually looking for other community groups to become involved in the effort. He is founder and president of Communities Without Borders, the nonprofit organization behind the project. More information can be found at www.communitieswithoutborders.org.

Kyle Alspach can be reached at kalspach@enterprisenews.com.