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Patient Story

“I thought the clinic was for other people” — rebuilding trust in rural care

Why a free clinic can stand empty for years, and what changed in one district when the staff started coming from the village itself.

Grace Adeyemi Regional Director, West Africa

4 min read

The clinic had been open for three years and was running at eleven percent of capacity. Not because of distance, or cost, or opening hours. Because nobody from the village worked there, and the people who did work there spoke a different first language and went home at five.

We replaced almost nothing about the building and almost everything about who staffed it. Attendance is now at seventy-eight percent of capacity.

Work like this is funded almost entirely by monthly gifts from individuals.

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