HelpMercy International is a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation founded in 2004 to assist in healthcare across Africa. 

Our Oganization: HelpMercy International, Incorporated is a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation, incorporated Jan 20, 2004 in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It was founded by Lloyd Williams, M.D., Ph.D, while he was a medical student at Tufts University School of Medicine.

Our Vision: Our vision is to see people and communities across Africa, live in hope, free from needless suffering.

Our Mission: The purpose of HelpMercy International, Inc., is to provide for improved healthcare for underprivileged and underserved populations throughout Africa through improving healthcare. Areas include, but are not limited to, providing healthcare education and scholarships, providing medical equipment, medications, and supplies, agriculture and nutrition interventions, and through encouraging medical personnel to become involved in the plight of underserved populations. HelpMercy International focuses on blindness in West Africa and specifically Sierra Leone and the Macha region of Zambia. Particular focuses are eye-care, burn-care, the treatment of patients with AIDS, and providing for the nutritional needs arising from these conditions. Revenues and donations generated by the activities of HelpMercy International will be used to support the aforementioned purposes.

Our Story:

Those of us who have met her can't forget Mercy's cries of pain that used to echo through the hospital where three doctors and 30 nurses try valiantly to care for as many as 208 patients. I can still vividly remember standing outside her room preparing to change her dressings without anesthesia, because the only available anesthesia could only be given on an empty stomach and she needed to eat as much as possible. I kept saying in my mind, "You have to do this. It will hurt, but you have to do this, if you don't, she'll get an infection and die." I can't forget her shy smile and her deep pleading eyes that seemed to say, "please be gentle." I remember how she would say to me, "just do the left arm today, not the right arm, okay." I would always say, "Ashonto, Ashonto," meaning "gently, gently."

Mercy, our organization's namesake was treated at Macha Mission Hospital for 3rd degree burns on her hands, arms, chest, and legs, suffered in June 2001. The most severely burned areas were her hands, with damage so extensive that she lost many of her fingers. At Macha, the medical staff was able to save her thumbs. Over time the scars on the backs of her hands have contracted and pulled her hands into a nonfunctional position. She needed surgery to regain the use of her hands so she could play, work and have a normal life. HelpMercy International began as an effort to raise money for Mercy to have her life back. After successfully repairing her hands, our founder and Dr. Spurrier at Macha hospital identified other things that the Macha Mission Hospital needed, like an ultrasound machine and medications to begin treating HIV. We have now been working in the Macha area for over a decade and are curently focused on providing nutrition for children, families, and HIV patients. True to our original mission, part of this work is to assist in the nutritional care of burned children at Macha. 

Blindness in Sierra Leone

> 100,000 blind
80% are treatable
most treatment <$20
~40% due to cataract
30% due to river blindness
5-23% due to cornea

The Country of Zambia

Pop - 14.5 million
Area - size of Texas
HIV - 14%
Malnutrition - 15%
Avg lifespan - 57 yrs
Poverty - 60%

Macha Region

Pop - 135,000
HIV - 12%
Avg lifespan - 39 yrs
Avg income - $1 / day
50% under age 12
Infant mortality - 107/1,000
Work - subsistence farms
Malnutrition common

Board Members

Alan Crandall, MD
Walter Hanssen
Brian Jones, PhD
David Paul, DMD
Kathy Prelack, PhD
Geoffrey Tabin, MD
Lloyd Williams, MD, PhD
Roger Williams, MS