World Friends’ actions at present are focused on the African continent and their final goal is to improve health, social and educational conditions in the most disadvantaged populations.
For this reason, the World Friends’ operative centre has taken the decision to live and work in the city of Nairobi in Kenya so as to assimilate better into the social structure of the area and be able to act as spokesman for the local communities.
The ultimate goal remains to encourage self-sufficiency in the communities where the Association works, and it is for this reason that World Friends makes use above all of local personnel for its activities in Africa, contributing to their professional training.
This action will go on further to consolidate the work carried out by World Friends at the Mbagathi Hospital and at the surgeries located in the Nairobi shanty towns.
Accident & Emergency, minor surgery and day hospital; HIV tests and treatments; Physiotherapy and Occupational Therapy; Pharmacy; Ambulance service; Centre for Professional Training; Pediatrics Department.
The projects of World Friends are mainly focused on populations in the shantytowns in the north - east area of Nairobi (Korogocho, Kariobangi, Babadogo, Mathare Valley - Eastleigh, Huruma, Kahawa, Soweto).around 700,000 people, half of whom are under 15 years of age.
The beneficiaries of World Friends’ projects come from backgrounds marked by poverty, violence, criminality, prostitution, the precariousness of housing and work, pollution, diseases.
The diagnosis of ailments requiring surgery and the incidence of cancer – the latter showing a clear increase – is often delayed due to the intrinsic inefficiencies of the health systems in African countries.
The lack of specialist services for diagnosis and treatment accessible to the poor worsens the outcomes of traumas and burns, very frequent among children, often causing permanent disabilities in a context where physical integrity is linked to the survival of the individual.
World Friends is part of regional networks that unite profit and non-profit realities, public bodies, universities and experts, thanks to the activities of local offices and volunteers.