2019: A Year of Continuing Our Commitment of Empowering Others to Save Lives

By DisqueFoundationTeam
November 30, 2019

The Disque Foundation empowers others to save lives by providing free advanced healthcare education to people around the world. Through its Save a Life Initiative, a partnership between the Disque Foundation and National Health Care Provider Solutions (NHCPS), the Disque Foundation offers multiple life support courses and certification online for free. After achieving its long-standing goal of empowering one million people to save a life earlier this year, the foundation now committed to empowering ten million people by 2025!

In 2019, the Disque Foundation empowered 600,000 people in 185+ different countries to save a life, for a current total of 1,459,000. We held 162 in-person trainings through the help of our partners and trainers. We started this mission in 2011 and wanted to reflect and share with you a few highlights from a memorable 2019.

January 2019: Nairobi, Kenya

The Disque Foundation returned to Nairobi, Kenya at the beginning of this year, partnering with the Global Foundation for International Cardiac and Community Services (FICCS).

The Disque Foundation team was last in Kenya in 2018, so this trip was both a chance to reconnect with old friends and further the work we started last year. We touched down on January 11, and during our first couple of days, the team worked with a team of doctors and nurses to train them in Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) and Electrocardiogram (EKG) Analysis.

After their training, the doctors and nurses advanced to super users, which is an advanced skill level that empowers this class to train other doctors and nurses at their hospitals. Training ‘super users’ means Disque’s training sessions continue to have an exponentially positive impact long after we’ve left. It’s a core philosophy of the Disque Foundation.

Later, the team visited Kariobangi, Kenya, where they partnered with Boxgirls Kenya, a nonprofit that teaches women how to box along with other life skills. The team trained the girls in CPR and AED, and in exchange, they taught us how to throw a punch!

During the 2018 trip, the Disque team worked with Compassionate Hands for the Disabled (CHD) in Ruai, Nairobi, Kenya, a rehabilitation and rescue center that cares for abandoned children living with a mental or physical disability. We got to visit our friends here again on this trip where they are currently caring for 100 children. Our partner, Global FICCS’ is spearheading a program at CHD that recruits women from the Kariobangi slums in Nairobi, trains, mentors, and educates them, and then employs them as house mothers at Compassionate Hands and caregivers.

The Disque team visited the city of Voi, where Kagona Gitau, one of our “super users,” from the 2018 trip, was training a team in Advanced Cardiac Life Support at Voi Hospital. Kagona has worked to set up trainings across Kenya, with the aid of our partner, MedSwipe. MedSwipe has the mission to empower local healthcare workers by providing the knowledge and tools required to ensure better patient care. While in Voi, the Disque Foundation taught a team how to read an EKG and the proper responses to conditions the heart monitor detects.

On our final day, the Disque Foundation held one more ACLS training for doctors and nurses in the cath lab at Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi. The team also was able to leave specialized cardiac equipment at the hospital and trained the staff on how to use it so that they were fully equipped to save more lives.

August 2019: Riobamba, Ecuador

In August, the Disque Foundation spent a week in Riobamba, Ecuador, where we trained health care providers and more than 600 community members in a variety of lifesaving techniques including Basic Life Support (BLS), Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR), and First Aid. The Disque team also assisted in prescribing and distributing prescription eyeglasses and donated medical supplies to multiple local communities in the area.

Several partnerships allowed to make this trip possible. The Disque Foundation partnered with the Fundacion Internacional Buen Samaritano Paul Martel (FIBUSPAM) and Partners for Andean Community Health (PACH). These organizations work to provide free and easily-accessible healthcare for the indigenous people of the Andes. Through clinics, operating rooms, and mobile medical clinics, FIBUSPAM and PACH treat tens-of-thousands of patients each year, in addition to providing primary care, dentistry, ophthalmology, and multi-specialty surgical programs. The Disque team also worked with Trek Coalition, which seeks to bring comprehensive medical care to people who live in underserved communities who otherwise might not receive health care.

The Disque Foundation, along with FIBUSPAM, PACH, and Trek Coalition, was able to facilitate access to medical care for nearly 1,000 community members in Ecuador’s Chimborazo province. We also worked to train “super users,” in CPR, AED, and First Aid, allowing these health care providers to go out and teach even more community members these life-saving skills.

Our Partners Around the World

Thanks to our ‘super-users’ and volunteers around the world, the number of people empowered to save a life is growing exponentially. A total of 162 trainings have been held in Argentina, Philippines, Nigeria, Panama, Egypt, Rwanda, and Pakistan, giving 6,444 individuals to skills needed to save a life. We wanted to give tribute to some of these individuals.

One of our partners, John Ralph Tolledo, hosted CPR, AED, and First Aid trainings for the Student Health Emergency Response Team in Laguna, Philippines. Over 500 individuals have been empowered to save a life thanks to John.

Since partnering with the Disque Foundation and National Health Care Provider Solutions (NHCPS), Alfie Roque, part of the Bravo Zulu Team in the Philippines, has hosted more than 65 events and has empowered thousands of individuals and counting to date. Alfie utilizes free course materials from the Disque Foundation in his training sessions for CPR, AED, & First Aid, BLS, and ACLS certification.

We are so thankful for our volunteers who support the Save a Life Initiative at the Disque Foundation.

A Look to 2020

In 2019, we empowered 1,495 people per day to save a life. We are planning to keep our momentum going into 2020! Empowering ten million individuals to save a life by 2025 will not be an easy feat, but we are up to the challenge. This coming year will be an exciting one; a trip to the Philippines is currently in the planning stage and new partnerships will continue to be developed.