Preventing Cervical Cancer - Globally (PINCC)

I am pleased to say PINCC has placed Gimbi , Ethiopia on the list of sites to train medical staff. Having spent the past 4 + years training midwife students in Gimbi, I know how important this service will be for the women living in the area. The first training session went well, and now we look forward to PINCCs returning for the next training, later this year. In Gimbi, This will mean that thousands of women, who have never before had the opportunity to get cervical cancer screening, will now be able to. This is huge! And we thank PINCC for reaching out to the Western Highlands of Ethiopia.
Mary R Clark MSN FNP/CNM
Gimbi Adventist Health Science College Volunteer
Gimbi, Ethiopia

I have volunteered for PINCC 6 times in Latin America for 1, 2 or 3 weeks of work teaching local health care providers how to identify and treat cervical lesions before they become cancer. PINCC is a truely sustainable NGO because native health care providers learn a skill they can apply long after PINCC volunteers are gone and, with practice, they can also teach their co-workers the same skills so there is a ripple effect. PINCC has grown and fostered positive relationships with providers and with Ministeries of Health in each country served. PINCC also is very careful to meet the needs of all the volunteers and to be sure they are never in harms way. I felt very comfortable being part of the PINCC group both in urban settings and in very remote, rural areas. Working with PINCC has been the most rewarding part of my career as a Nurse Midwife and a Women's Health Care Practitioner.
Lyell Fox, CNM, ARNP

After recently losing someone I know living in a developing country to cervical cancer, when I saw PINCC in the list of companies for a board match I am invited to, I could not wait to meet them. When I met them and learned about how much they have helped women internationally by setting up sustainable clinics in developing countries, I cannot stop talking about them. So impressed that I joined them as a volunteer and a board member. Looking forward to contributing in anyway I can to PINCC doing even greater things in the future.

Love PINCC! I recently joined as a board member, and now as a donor and volunteer. They do amazing work and I am especially fond of how they train clinics to become self-sufficient. They don't just help and leave. I hope to continue to grow my involvement in the organization. Their work is very important.

This last summer, I traveled to Nicaragua with PINCC and saw the lives of so many women being protected by these simple tests/scans. I am currently a junior in high school and a prospective med student, so this experience was incredible for me. I feel that because of volunteers like myself, we are able to help people who do not have all that we do. This organization is changing the lives of so many women and they deserve to be known all across this country so that more people can join in the cause.

I have been involved with PINCC since 2008, when our Soroptimist Club honored PINCC's founder, Dr. Kay Taylor, a Woman of Distinction for founding PINCC. In 2011, I went on my first trip with PINCC. I have now been to Kenya, Uganda and Nicaragua with PINCC, all experiences being real eye-openers for me. The women I met in these developing nations were incredible, yet were dying from this horrible disease needlessly at the rate of over 300 a day. PINCC can help wipe out cervical cancer world wide and I'm proud to have been a part of this effort. In 2012, due to my first trip experience, I joined the board of PINCC and have served on the board since that time. PINCC is an amazing organization doing amazing work!

I volunteer for PINCC. I donate to PINCC. I tell everyone I know to donate to PINCC. I tell international contacts to look into starting a relationship with PINCC. As a volunteer I can tell you first had that they are the most responsible, financially responsible (agonizing over whether to buy a new roll of duct tape etc....), sustainable organization I have ever worked for. They teach the teachers and thus plant the seed for even greater change when they finish each project. They are saving women from cancer and their children from orphan-hood. I can't think of a single thing I would change with this organization except for to wish they had more resources to do more of the same work.

I came to know this organization early this year and love the work that they do. The impact that this organization has on women in under served countries is commendable. They are changing lives, one cervical screening at a time.

I am a family physician who has traveled now with PINCC twice on cervical cancer prevention campaigns in Africa. The trips were fantastic!
Firstly, I love their model-- it is a really rare thing to be able to take medical personnel on a trip that lasts weeks but is actually sustainable and beneficial to the local healthcare system. Rather than providing direct care, PINCC trains local workers, mostly women, and helps empower them to improve the health of their community.
Secondly-- what fantastic company! The trip leadership is without fail delightful, interesting, and a joy to work with.
Last but not least, your money is well spent. PINCC makes every penny count, but still leaves you with a comfortable experience.
If you have a chance, donate to or travel with PINCC!

PINCC is an amazing organization that does excellent work. I have had the opportunity to volunteer with PINCC as a physician and it was an amazing experience. They do important, sustainable work for women who have little access to healthcare. I would work with them again in a heartbeat.

I volunteered with PINCC this past March and my life has been forever changed. Actually getting to see women's lives changing and watching nurses and doctors learn how to screen women for cervical cancer was so enlightening. Knowing that I had even just a small role in helping the cause is very impactful to me. I am so thankful for the opportunity and I would love to see PINCC grow even further to help more women globally!

I got to know about this organization through Kay Taylor with whom I paint on Wednesdays. Our visit to Muhuroni, Kenya was an extraordinary experience. The women we served were amazing people. I fell in love with more people than I can remember. It was fun being in that environment which wasn't much different from my own rural hometown. I'm hoping to be able to do at least one trip to that region every year. It was very rewarding. It would be great if that program could be expanded.

I have had the opportunity to volunteer twice with PINCC, first in Kenya and then in Nicaragua. In both countries, we were in remote area where women came from miles away on boats, horses and foot. Using the simple and inexpensive vinegar for diagnosis and onsite treatment, so many women were treated. And the training of local medical staff meant the treatment would go on into the future for generations. 300,000 women die each year in developing countries from a completely preventable disease. Each death affects families and communities in profound and lasting ways. PINNC has created a a response to this tragedy which is inexpensive, empowering to local medical staff and could end cervical cancer forever.

I was fortunate to be a volunteer with PINCC in Nicaragua. It was a moving experience. I was with about a dozen intelligent, humble, wonderful people. We were able to screen, treat, and inform so many women each day while also training health care workers in the region to continue to carry on this vitally important work. I also learned a great deal about my role as a nurse and how I can make a difference by being a part of a well organized and focused effort. It was a gift. I look forward to further opportunities to support PINCC and the amazing work they so effectively implement where it is so needed.

I came to know about PINCC a few years ago as a donor. I was really impressed with their work in countries where cervical cancer is still a major problem. They have done several awareness and screening programs at the grassroots level and trained many local healthworkers. They are doing a great job and I wish them all the best in their future efforts.

I came to know about PINCC through my sister who volunteers with the organization. When I learned about their valiant, unrelenting and highly successful efforts at protecting and healing women and thereby families in various developing nations around the world, I was deeply moved by their work. I was so impressed with their role in controlling and preventing cervical cancer, one of the most preventable, yet deadly diseases afflicting women that I decided to host them at our elementary school for a service project.
At this event , our parent community will recognize and acknowledge the critical role that PINCC plays in saving mothers and thereby entire families in poverty stricken regions of Asia, Africa and Latin America. As a mother myself, I salute PINCC and wish them all the very best in their journey towards achieving a healthier future for women and families around the world.

PINCC (or PCC) is a great organization. Having volunteered with them a number of times, I have seen firsthand how much can be done for the women of the world by a small number of dedicated people.
I can recommend this charity without reservation!

I have been a volunteer with PINCC since 2011, helping develop their community outreach and education program. When I first met them and learned about the work they do to help women all over the world I was amazed. Their model of not only screening and treating the local women at these sites, but also training the medical staff, making them self sufficient by donating necessary equipment such as microscopes etc, educating local women and the community health workers about cervical prevention and treatment, and then revisiting all the sites periodically to ensure that quality of work is maintained is an ideal and self sustaining one. Their work has always been appreciated by the communities of these sites and has now also started gaining recognition by the governments who want to collaborate with PINCC to develop national Cervical Cancer screening programs. Being from India myself I am aware of how common cervical cancer is in the developing nations. I feel both honored and humbled to be associated with PINCC and am fortunate to have this opportunity to make a small contribution to the improvement of health of women all over the world.

There are so many good causes to give one's time and money to; but so few good solutions. Preventing Cervical Cancer has the solution to preventing Cervical Cancer. Instead of going to a country doing some good work and not leaving anything behind, PCC goes where invited, trains staff & provides the necessary medical equipment so that screening and treatment can carry on without PCC. Over 30 clinics and hospitals in the Global South have graduated and are carrying on so that now many thousands of poor women are protected from this terrible disease. Mostly volunteers go to Africa, Latin America and India. Ethiopia and Bangladesh are eager for us to come and we will as soon as we can raise the money. It is such a joy to tell a woman that the displasia was removed and the threat of cancer is gone.

I went on a volunteer trip with PINCC to Nicaragua and found it to be an amazing experience. I think PINCC offers an invaluable service to women in developing countries. I am eager to do another trip with the organization.

I believe PINCC to be a model for a medical non-profit: it offers a focused, life-saving service that can be easily taught, with minimal resources, with enormous potential benefit to the health of women around the world. I have volunteered with other medical teams in underserved areas where we deliver healthcare directly to patients, but after we leave I've always felt uneasy about how these patients might fare, left with overstrained and under equipped personnel and resources. But with PINCC, we are enabling the practitioners themselves to continue to deliver life-saving care, to far more patients than we could ever see, by teaching them this simply method of screening and treating pre-cancerous cervix lesions and thereby preventing premature death.
I have decided after my experience with PINCC that the only kind of medical volunteer trip I want to do in the future will be one which leaves behind a legacy like theirs!

300,000 women die each year of cervical cancer in developing countries, a disease that has been almost eliminated in the United States. Using vinegar and headlamps and dustbusters bought on the local market, PINCC is training local medical staff to stop cervical cancer. Volunteers pay their own way and administrative costs are kept to a minimum so that the vast majority of all funding goes for direct on the ground services. I know. I spent two weeks in western Kenya in 2014 and I got to watch PINCC in action. What makes PINCC unique is not that they are saving women's lives on three continents, but that they are training local staff to create and fund their own low cost clinics and then going one step further to train the trainees to become trainers themselves. As a volunteer, I learned how to make swabs (because there are none), clean speculums, did data entry, set up clinic rooms (without electricity) and assisted in procedures. The local trainees worked all night and then came to classes twice a day and learned, hands on, how to diagnose and treat the lesions which lead to cervical cancer. Women walked for miles and waited for hours to be seen. And the trainees knew that whatever they could learn would save the women of their communities, their families, themselves.
There are other clinics in other countries on a long waiting list to invite PINCC to come to them to train. The only limitation is financial. Every dollar is stretched to its outer limit because every dollar means another woman saved, another grandmother survives to care for the next generation, another trainee becomes a trainer to pass along the education to stop cervical cancer everywhere, forever.

PINCC is the premier global NGO in screening for and preventing cervical cancer in the world. Our work in India demonstrated that this wholly preventable, but very deadly, cancer can indeed be prevented inexpensively!

I have volunteered with PINCC in Central America, and can attest that they operate on a very limited budget. PINCC recruits volunteer medical and non-medical folks (like me) who pay their own way on 1-2 week trips to countries like El Salvador and Kenya. The volunteer medical team trains local doctors to detect cervical cancer using vinegar (yes, the white vinegar we use at home!). During these training clinics up to 50 women are seen and treated each day. PINCC trains the doctors to detect and treat early-stage lesions the same day they are detected, which is important in a poor country where the women may travel great distances to obtain medical care.
PINCC is very effective. They use their volunteers wisely, and they create sustainable cervical cancer detection and treatment programs by training the local docs and donating the equipment the doctors will need to treat early stage cancers.

We have been donors to PINCC from early on and have been impressed and gratified by their work. The organization is lean and effective, focusing on doing one thing well. We appreciate the international focus, the strong volunteer involvement and the smart use of donor dollars.
Kate OHanlan, MD & Léonie Walker

I have worked with PINCC in Peru, Kenya and India. As an Ob Gyn physician I can wholeheartedly support their mission and process. They operate on a shoestring budget and do important work that no other organization is doing. Cervical cancer is huge problem for poor women around the world- but neglected by many governments and health care organizations. PINCC knows the value of saving women's lives.

I had a great experience with PINCC- I have done a lot of international work and I was really impressed by PINCC's approach and model- really felt like we were leaving tools and skills that healthcare professionals would be able to use after we left.

I have been on two missions, both lasting two weeks: the first to El Salvador and Nicaragua in 2012 and the second to two places in Nicaragua in 2013. I volunteered as a translator, working with PINCC doctors and nurses to train the local medical staff. We worked hard, under demanding conditions, and the rewards were enormous: we were able to train the local doctors and nurses to be able to detect low- and high-grade cervical lesions that could lead to cervical cancer, a leading cause of death among women in Latin America.

PINCC volunteers are dedicated, knowledgeable professionals who give up their time and pay their own way to make an enormous contribution to the people in the developing countries (Latin America, Asia, and Africa). The very small PINCC staff organizes and runs a very tight ship and maximizes all resources. It is an incredibly fine organization that I am proud to be able to be part of.

PINCC is the most rewarding volunteer work I have done. It teaches other health professionals to continue the work of checking for Cervical Cancer in third world countries. We have taught Midwives and Physicians who continue to teach others. And continue to see patients themselves.
When you leave it feels as if you have done some good.
Plus I always feel as if I have received much more than I have given. PINCC is a great organization.

I have been volunteering for almost 5 years with PINCC as a Nurse Practitioner, and I love it. We work very hard when we are there to train the local nurses and physicians, so that when we are not there they can go on saving women's lives. Cervical cancer is so rare in the U.S. that we forget how many lives are lost every year in the developing world because of it. We know how to prevent this cancer; it is easy and inexpensive to do. PiNCC makes the most of every dollar donated and has a huge impact in women's lives.

I am a member of this board because I am so impressed by how many women's lives are saved with so little money. Medical and non-medical volunteers pay their own way to travel to parts of Central America, Africa and India to screen and treat women for cervical cancer who live in areas with little access to healthcare.

PINCC is always invited to the places they visit and they also train local health workers in the low cost screening method used. This organization's overhead is extremely low and I like knowing that most of the donations and money raised is going to the women who need it most.

I was part of a PINCC trip to Nicaragua in June of 2013. The trip by far exceeded my expectations. Everything was so organized and handled with great care. We worked hard, but got time to relax and experience the city. I felt like our efforts were making real tangible lasting changes in the environment where we worked and we all left feeling like we had really made a difference. The best part about PINCC is that the work is really self sustainable. You leave feeling like you have left the local people with really valuable skills that they can continue to use as well as teach to their peers.

As a nurse practitioner, I have made 4 trips in the past 5 years as a PINCC volunteer. Since my first trip, I have been impressed with PINCC's method of sharing valuable cervical cancer detection & prevention education in locations where screening is neglected or difficult to obtain.

Opportunities to help improve health conditions internationally abound, but PINCC stands out. Why? Because PINCC does not swoop in periodically for a week to provide valuable services that are gone when they leave. PINCC makes 3 or 4 training visits to each site at approximately 6 month intervals until trainees are sufficiently experienced to safely carry on the work alone without supervision and educational support from PINCC. Doctors and nurses are trained in their usual health care clinic setting, with resources available locally, to carry out a sustainable effective cervical cancer screening & early treatment program. They, in turn, serve as a continued resource to their community to train others to carry on the work.

Cervical cancer takes years to develop after the woman is initially infected with the HPV virus. If regular screening methods are put in place, no woman needs to die from cervical cancer. It is preventable. PINCC leaves a sustainable legacy of lasting impact with new skills to carry on and teach to others after their PINCC training is completed and the "foreigners" have gone home.

P.S. PINCC makes volunteering your time and money feel worthwhile and rewarding personally. They take good care of their volunteers and smooth the way for enjoyable team work experiences. You never have to wonder if your personal needs will be met adequately by the housing, food and transportation plans they make for the team members.

I volunteered with PINCC on there most recent trip to Kenya. It was such a life altering experience. I am a Registered Nurse who has seen and heard quite a bit. This experience brought me to tears a couple of times (in a good way). The women were so greatful and the country was so beautiful. While there we educated hundreds of women and saved the lives of dozens who otherwise would have suffered.
I love the fact that PINCC is culturally senstive and does not judge. They take excellent care of their volunteers and really gives you a chance to understand what the world is really about; helping others. Many have asked if I would go back to help again and without a second thought I always say "Heck Yeah!!"

My experience working with PINCC in Kenya was fantastic. Before the trip I was nervous since it was my first time in a third-world country and safety was a concern. From the second I joined the group I felt safe.

Our work was amazing and left a noticeable and sustainable impact on the communities that we worked with. I will definitely recommend PINCC.

I have worked for PINCC since 2011 as the Administrator, and before I went on my first PINCC trip to Kenya, I understood the needlessness of women dying from cervical cancer and all the statistics behind it. Yet, actually being in the country and meeting the women effected by cervical cancer helped me to learned so much more, not only about the program but about myself.

I meet two shopkeeper sisters that came to the clinic for screening because there older sister is dying of cervical cancer. They told me that her care is very expensive for the whole family, and she is constantly in pain. Although they were afraid they too might be diagnosed with cervical cancer, they were brave, got screened, and received a clean bill of health. When I saw them again they were so happy and relieved.

The importance of ones healthcare was common with many women. They came from all over and great distances because their health is a priority.

PINCC works with volunteer health care works in the community that travel from town to town, village to village educating women and their families about cervical cancer and the importance of screening and prevention. Most of the women never heard of cervical cancer but when you describe the symptoms they all know someone who has died or currently suffering from this terrible cancer.

Getting to meet the women in one-on-one situations allowed me the opportunity to intimately learn about another culture, their aspirations, and appreciate the connection we all have as human beings. This was a rare opportunity for me, but a common one for people who volunteers for PINCC. Which I think is the reason so many volunteer over and over again.

I have volunteered twice with PINCC in Kenya in 2013 and find them to be the best volunteer organization I have worked with. Teaching health care providers in Kenya and watching them learn and improve their skills so they can then carry on and once certified teach others is amazing. It is a self sustaining program, giving people the tools they need and then they carry on saving the lives of women on their own. I can't say enough about PINCC. I plan on continuing my volunteer work with them for as long as I am able.

PINCC is one of the international women health care institute working for the health of the women. They are giving a great contribution in improvement in the health of the women. No Cervical Cancer is their aim and they doing a all hard work to fight with this diseases which are very much dangerous. Cervical Cancer is normally found in women.
http://www.womenhealthcenter.net/articles/health-issues/cervical-cancer

I was a PINCC RN volunteer in El Salvador and Nicaragua in both 2009 and 2010. PINCC is a most effective international grass roots women's health initiative. This organization trains local medical professionals in India, Africa, Peru, and Central America in the utilization of WHO approved acetic acid (white vinegar) to screen for pre cancerous cervical lesions. Often in developing countries with minimal medical infrastructue and a highly rural population, many women can not obtain Pap smears or access treatment in a timely manner. PINCC trains the medical professionals in the screening techniques, as well as in the use of donated equipment to treat identified lesions on the same day as the woman's visit.

PINCC is an organization that gives meaning to the phrase "more bang for the buck." Although it runs on a shoestring - using a virtually 100% volunteer workforce (medical and non-medical) - it leverages the power of it's endeavor by creating and supporting self-sustaining operations at target sites. I have participated with PINCC in Central America and in Africa as a physician-trainer, offering local healthcare workers an effective and inexpensive approach to 1) early diagnosis of cervical PRE-cancer and 2) accompanying treatment to prevent progression to cancer. Training efforts are directed at healthcare facilities that provide low cost or free women's services.

These procedures are office-based, inexpensive, and highly effective. PINCC re-visits each site several times to validate the quality of work being done and to certify individual healthcare workers (physicians, nurses, physician assistants, nurse-midwives, medical officers, etc.) in the diagnostic and therapeutic procedures they have been taught. PINCC also donates equipment and supplies where necessary, enabling recipients to maintain a very low cost clinical operation over time. The focus may seem narrow, but cervical cancer is the number one cancer killer of women in the developing world. The significant impact of the efforts of this organization, now in operation for 6 years, is expanding over time.

I had the good fortune to end up with PINCC when looking for a summer internship for my MPH program. The staff and volunteers have been wonderful in giving me an inside look at how a small non-profit goes about making big differences in the lives of women around the world. PINCC has been an exciting and inspirational place to start putting some of my classroom learning into practice.

When I heard about Prevention International: No Cervical Cancer (PINCC), I knew it was where I was supposed to be giving my time. The focus of the organization is on the grassroots level, on training health care providers in rural areas, on empowering women, and on developing sustainable programs that provide a direct service to the people who need it. I had the privilege to go to Africa with PINCC this past February as a non-medical person. The team was fabulous and we worked together as if we had been doing so for years-even though we were from all different parts of the country/world. We went places that tourists do not go. We met the most amazing courageous women, who against many odds came to be screened, to share their stories and lives with us, and to get help and treatment. To see the face of a woman, filled with relief at receiving treatment, and know that she was not going to die from this disease, is beyond words really. There were many times that I wept with joy as well as with sadness for those we could not help. PINCC is a very small organization that in 5 years is now on 3 continents and in 9 countries working to end death and suffering caused by cervical cancer. Unlike developed countries, cervical cancer is the number 1 cancer killer for women in the developing world. Personally I like the fact that it is a small organization without a large bureaucracy. PINCC like many ngos is struggling in this economy and is also trying to build its infrastructure a bit more, which it needs to do in order to maintain and expand its programs. PINCC relies on volunteers to make up the medical teams; and it relies on the generosity of individual people to open their hearts and wallets to support their important work.

Dr. Kay Taylor, the charismatic and visionary founder of PINCC, invited me to join the Board early on. Kay and I had been neighbors and friends for many years. I already knew something about PINCC. At her retirement party, celebrating a career devoted to women and medicine as an OB/GYN physician at Kaiser Permanente, Kay had announced an ambitious plan for the next phase of her life -- to found a non-profit organization to train health care personnel around the world to screen at risk and poor women for cervical cancer. I immediately accepted Kay's invitation to become part of this effort to provide such critical services. Over the years with PINCC my devotion to and admiration for Kay's vision has deepened as I saw so many talented physicians and volunteers become devoted to PINCC and the incredible impact a small organization can have on the lives of literally thousands of women worldwide, many of them devalued by societies that fail to provide even basic health care services to women past childbearing years. I will soon be retiring myself after decades of legal practice. I too have a vision, to redouble my involvement in PINCC.

I am a nurse practitioner and nurse midwife who has been volunteering in both urban and rural sites in El Salvador and Nicaragua for the past two weeks. It has been an intense and rewarding experience, taining nurses, family doctors, gyn residents and gynecologists to do the "see and treat" method described below to try and make a dent in the terribly high rate of cervical cancer, a completely preventible disease.

I am a Gynecologist who has been volunteering at Sai Baba's ashram general hospital in south India. I saw many women with invasive, advanced, deadly cervical cancer. In the US this is a rare disease, but in India, there is no screening available for the poor villagers. I was introduced to the work of PINCC and it was the answer to the dilemma of introducing a low cost, low tech process that effectively prevents this disease in a country that sees almost 300,000 women die from cervical cancer each year. I have been on 3 missions to Africa and India. The doctors that we have trained are continuing to screen and treat village women and teaching their other doctors how to do this examination and treatment. The doctors are grateful because they know they will be saving women from horrible deaths in isolation and pain. The village women bestow their sincere gratitude and love and understand that the PINCC teams come to allow women to live healthy and productive lives. I am now on the board, a donor, a fund raiser as well as the medical director for India. Since retiring from my practice, my life revolves around PINCC and I am more fulfilled than I have ever been. This organization is providing a local, sustainable solution to reduce sickness and death from a PREVENTABLE cancer that is the rampant in the developing world. This organization is providing its volunteers with a wealth of happiness and experiences that make our lives better. Consider getting involved as a donor, volunteer, supporter. You will be happy that you did.

I went with PINCC in 8/08 with absolutely no idea of what i was in for. It was an extrordinary experience and one i will never forget. I went to three major African Countries-Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. The people of Africa stay in my mind constantly and feel I have been changed by this experience forever more.

Am the Deputy medical superitendant of Kisoro Hospital in Uganda. Am also in charge of the community health department as well as the country representative for Doctors for Global health(DGH) in Uganda.PINCC was introduced to us by students from Albert Einstein College of Medicine(AECOM)who had been working with us in trying to address the challenges of womens heath, particularly cervical cancer screening. The PINCC team agreed to visit Kisoro during one of their trips to East Africa. They have since visited us every 6 months since August 2007. During these visits, they have trained a team of 12 health workers at this hospital in VIA, Cryotherapy and LEEP.At the same time have supported the team in carrying out campaigns of screening. THe team has now become fully self sufficient and in 2008 has screened over 1500 women.Kisoro is only the 5th site in the entire country that is now doing screening, and in 2008 was the most active in the entire country. PINCC also helped mobilise resources and donated to us a cryotherapy and LEEP machines. We have truly benefited from the services that PINCC offers. Dr. Baganizi Michael(miknizi@yahoo.com)

I have worked for a number of non-profit organizations around the globe over the last 5 years as Registered Nurse in the developing world. Working with Dr. Kay Taylor and PINCC was the most rewarding experience I have ever participated in. PINCC not only provides a valuable service to women without access to health care, they are also training Dr.s and nurses to carry on the work in their absence. This is what all non-profits should be doing but which, sadly, many do not.

I've been taking teams of volunteer doctors, nurses, and lay people to 8 countries in Central America and Africa for 3 years, to train and equip medical people who serve poor and high risk women in methods to prevent cervical cancer. It's the #1 cause of cancer death in 3rd world countries among women, and yet it's preventable! We've trained over 50 medical people this year alone. Our methods are low-cost and low-tech, so can be used in low resource settings. It's been very successful, and terrifically rewarding to save the lives of these women, and know the people we train will go on saving lives for many years to come.