The recent flooding in Pakistan has devastated the region.  One-fifth of the country, an area about the size of Italy, is now underwater, and entire villages have been swept away.  It is estimated that 15 million people have been displaced by the flooding.  Johnson & Johnson has distributed three Johnson & Johnson Disaster Relief Modules to the region, which include items such as sutures, wound dressings, Band-Aids, Neosporin and emergency medicine.  In addition to these modules, Johnson & Johnson is providing cash and product donations, and working with partners in the area to give immediate assistance to the victims. 

One such organization that my colleagues at Johnson & Johnson Pakistan are working with is The Edhi Foundation, an organization that specializes in providing medical care, emergency medicine and other social services to those in need.  The Edhi Foundation is distributing flood relief packages to victims in the region.  These kits contain emergency medicine, including Imodium and Motilium, among other items.

The Citizen’s Foundation, with support from Johnson & Johnson, is dispensing ration packs that consist of food, water-purifying packs and basic medicines.  These ration packs provide enough materials to sustain a family of 5 for an entire month.  Since the flooding, TCF has distributed packs to nearly 2,000 families.

Johnson & Johnson is also working with our longtime partners in the region – AmeriCares, Direct Relief International, Heart to Heart, UNICEF, and World Vision – to dispense continuing aid to those affected by this tragedy.  Those of us at Johnson & Johnson will offer ongoing support as efforts continue to rebuild Pakistan.

You can read more about our efforts in Pakistan and the partners Johnson & Johnson works with on our corporate website.  Visit their websites to find out how you can help.

Johnson & Johnson employees and Edhi Foundation staff with flood relief packages.

From Anu Gupta, M.D., Director, Corporate Contributions, Johnson & Johnson

As I pulled out my suitcase to pack for the upcoming International AIDS Society conference in Vienna, Austria, I was reminded of the last time I used it. A month ago, I had traveled to Washington, D.C. to attend the Global Health Council Award Dinner. While I had been to the dinner before, this was a very special year because I had nominated mothers2mothers (m2m) for an award and they had won! 

As I sat with m2m founder Dr. Mitch Besser at the VIP table with luminaries in global health, I recalled my last visit to m2m in October 2006 to open a series of new sites in East London, South Africa, where Johnson & Johnson has had a manufacturing facility for more than 75 years. The mentor mothers I met on that trip, their stories, their songs and their struggles have stayed with me. 

It was no surprise to me that when Mitch went to the podium to accept the award, his speech was all about the mothers – the mentor mothers, all HIV-positive, who had recently delivered and gone through the process of taking antiretrovirals to prevent mother-to-child transmission, and the pregnant women, also all HIV-positive, whom the mentor mothers were actively empowering through words and by example to have healthy children and live healthier lives. Joining the hundreds of guests in a standing ovation, I felt so grateful and honored to call Mitch and mothers2mothers our partner and friend. You can learn more about our work with m2m here.

This coming week, thousands will gather at the International AIDS Society meeting in Vienna to discuss the state of AIDS in 2010 and the future of the epidemic, from financing, to new prevention modalities and treatment aspirations. One topic that will take center stage is the global desire and commitment to eliminate pediatric AIDS by 2015 by preventing transmission of HIV from a mother to her unborn child and ensuring that mother is linked to health care for herself. We want to go from 1,000+ new infections in babies a day to 0. It is a goal that is within our reach. Everyone from Annie Lennox to Carla Bruni Sarkozy (Born HIV Free) will be there to figure out how to accomplish it.

Johnson & Johnson will also be front and center, convening with partners UNAIDS, Funders Concerned About AIDS (FCAA), and Global Business Coalition (GBC). This candid conversation with 20 funders – both private philanthropists and corporate donors – will explore under-resourced initiatives and innovative approaches to reach scale and achieve the dream of a world where no child is born with HIV and every mother has access to medication for her own health. Stay tuned for updates on the meeting.

From Michael Bzdak, Director, Corporate Contributions, Johnson & Johnson

No matter where you live, you have the opportunity to play a role in the education and development of young people. Many of my colleagues at Johnson & Johnson are active in youth programs in their communities around the world ranging from sports to science to the arts and to the environment. Often, volunteer opportunities are linked to the organizations we support in many of the communities where we have offices and other operations.

I have had the privilege of serving as a volunteer mentor to a number of high school students in New Brunswick, New Jersey through the Bridge to Employment (BTE) Program, a partnership between Johnson & Johnson and the Academy for Educational Development. BTE was founded by Johnson & Johnson in 1992 to stem the high school dropout rate and address a projected shortage of health care workers by opening teens’ eyes to their own potential and guiding them toward promising careers in health care. BTE has helped thousands of students with mentoring and coaching over the years.  

In my eight years of mentoring, I have seen profound changes in the students as they progress through high school and into higher education. The first cohort of students in New Brunswick will be entering their senior year of university this coming year. In this time, I have witnessed incredible growth among the handful of students I still see regularly.

Beyond New Brunswick, the BTE program engages with hundreds of other students and dozens of schools and other organizations in 10 communities around the world. In each site, Johnson & Johnson employees have committed their time and talent to guide students in their career plans and dreams, such as my colleague Conrad Person who recently blogged about the impact of mentoring on his own career. As the global manager for this program, I often attend end-of-year sessions where the students give academic presentations related to health care issues or specific disease states. These events are always impressive and emotional. Why emotional? Emotional because the students are clearly in control of difficult material and perform well beyond our expectations…Emotional because the bonds that have developed between the students and employees are deep and strong… Emotional because the students are clearly on their way to realizing their dreams.

While the BTE program is designed around successful and proven school-to-career models, the real beauty of the program is found in the local collaborations that form to provide students with opportunities and exposure to parts of the world that are invisible to them. The BTE program in Bogota, Colombia is a wonderful example of a locally designed effort. Our partnership with the Politecnico Internacional grew out of relationships developed by local Johnson & Johnson management. This program provides students, such as Catalina Munoz, with incredible opportunities and inroads into the health care job market in Colombia.

Although we measure outcomes over all of the programs, there is nothing more powerful than seeing students overcome adversity to live their dreams of becoming a doctor, nurse, or public health professional. Equally powerful is the dedication of employees to these students and to education in their communities. My colleagues in Inverness, Scotland, for example, were recently recognized by the UK government for their superlative dedication to science and technology education in northern Scotland. There is no doubt that BTE can help students realize their dreams. There is also no doubt that BTE provides Johnson & Johnson employees, like me, an opportunity to participate in affecting the lives of young people.

From Brittany Hume, Corporate Contributions, Johnson & Johnson

Among those who play it, soccer can lend lessons of the power of believing in yourself, working as a team, overcoming challenges, and persevering toward a goal. 

As it happens, these lessons are also the most important to teach youth at risk of HIV/AIDS. Low expectations, low self-confidence, and lack of hope are among the most dangerous risk factors for HIV/AIDS, as they can lead to risky behaviors. For this reason, evidence has shown that HIV prevention education is most effective when coupled with behavioral programming—like soccer—that addresses the social and personal root causes of risk.    

Since 2007, Johnson & Johnson has supported soccer-based HIV prevention programs for youth, working with partners Academy for Educational Development (AED) and Grassroot Soccer in northern Namibia to deliver Grassroot Soccer’s proven (and fun) “Skillz” curriculum to 8,000 youth per year.

This year, we decided to go one step further, drawing upon the world’s soccer zeal and the African backdrop to highlight the power of soccer as a tool in the fight against HIV/AIDS. We chose to focus on teenage girls, who are at three times greater risk for HIV/AIDS than boys, and with whom soccer’s messages of empowerment and leadership resonate well. The result, Girlz Got Skillz: A Summit on Health, Leadership, and Empowerment, convened 50 girls from Namibia, South Africa, and the United States at a sports school outside Cape Town, South Africa, for a week of education and fun.

As one of the planners for this event, I had a chance to stay with the girls at the sports school, accompany them during their activities, and watch their progress during the week. On the first day, the three groups of girls could not have seemed more different, each speaking their native languages—Xhosa, Oshiwambo, and English—in huddled groups, too timid to mingle. Immediately, soccer became the tool to engage and unify them: within moments of the coaches revealing a few soccer balls, the groups of girls had melded together, running toward the soccer pitch, dribbling the balls, and celebrating as one when someone scored.  

The magic was seeing what could happen after soccer had opened the door, getting the girls’ attention and enabling them to earn each others’ trust. During the week, the girls participated in nine intensive Skillz curriculum sessions on HIV/AIDS and life skills, like Risk Fitness, which required them to be quick-witted as a team to weigh the varying degrees of risk of various situations, like relationships with older partners. These activities prompted ongoing, “offline” discussions about the social norms the girls faced in their communities, whether related to relationships, sex, or their long-term educational and career goals. In addition, the girls participated in a round table discussion with South African women who have risen above major challenges to become leaders in their communities; met young women living with HIV, who shared their stories and educated the girls about preventing mother-to-child transmission; and participated in a “Resiliency Race” in which the girls used a series of clues to explore the city of Cape Town and learn about women’s influential role in the city’s history.

The most moving stories of the week, however, were the ones the girls told themselves. On the eve of the summit’s culminating event, we gathered the girls in a final forum called the Skillz Café to reflect on the many lessons they heard during the week and relate them back to their own lives. Their trust in and support for one another by this point was understood; they were ready to share. That evening, I heard girls talk of physical and sexual abuse from family members, of the denial of education because of their gender, of having to become the leader of a broken family after a parent’s death from AIDS. All of these horrors emerged from girls as young as 14. 

These were the stories they told. These are their “risk factors;” this is their reality. And all it took was a bit of soccer to break the ice, engage them in discussion, show them that there were other options, and give them hope. This video provides a good overview of the program’s impact. And, you can follow the participants on Facebook.

From Paul Stoffels, Global Head, Pharmaceuticals Research & Development

Last week I was privileged to represent Johnson & Johnson at the Pacific Health Summit (PHS) – an annual gathering that convenes nearly 250 leaders in science, policy and industry to focus on issues of critical importance to global health. It is a unique event that connects decision makers to spark solutions in the quest for a healthier world.

This year’s theme was Maternal and Newborn Health. The idea is that caring for mothers and providing opportunities for better prenatal, newborn and childhood care can lead to a healthier, more productive world.

For many of us in the developed world, access to maternal and child care is a given. But for many mothers and children around the world, that’s not the case. According to a recent report, globally, 8.8 million children a year die before their fifth birthday, more than 40 percent of them during their first four weeks of life. At least two-thirds of all child deaths are preventable.

No theme could be more aligned with the work and values of Johnson & Johnson. Women and children have been at the heart of our core business for nearly 125 years. They are an important focus of our public/private partnering, and remain a touchstone of our charitable giving. At the same time, no one institution or organization can solve this problem alone, which is why I believe that collaboration and sharing solutions and resources is so important.

One of the most critical discussions I participated in was the session focused on preventing mother-to-child transmission of HIV.  According to the UNAIDS AIDS Epidemic Update 2009, in 2008, approximately 430,000 children under age 15 became infected with HIV, mainly through mother-to-child transmission; about 90 percent of these occurred in Africa.  At the same time, in high income counties this problem has been virtually eliminated through effective voluntary testing and counseling, access to antiretroviral therapy, safe delivery practices, and availability of breast-milk substitutes.  

The conversation on this topic at PHS was spirited to say the least – it was clear to me that the participants strongly believe that if similar interventions were implemented around the world, they could have significant impact in saving children’s lives. Our challenge now, discussed by Sheri McCoy, worldwide chairman of our Pharmaceuticals Group in an essay in the “Summit Challenge” compendium, is to determine the most effective channels and identify the appropriate resources to take action and make this a reality. At Johnson & Johnson, we have begun doing so by working with global stakeholders and supporting partners, such as mothers2mothers and the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, on PMTCT programs.

I also detailed progress in our partnership with the TB Alliance, aimed at developing new drugs for a disease that still causes 2 million deaths each year, a significant portion of them being children. Our partnership has enabled great clinical progress, and led to the recent announcement of the Critical Path to TB Drug Regimens initiative. CPTR members include the world’s leading pharmaceutical developers, global regulatory agencies, and civil society organizations, which are working together to overcome obstacles and speed new TB drug regimens to the patients who most urgently need them. Incidentally, this unprecedented cross-sector partnership to tackle TB was fueled by conversations at the 2009 PHS.

Other Johnson & Johnson colleagues at the Summit shared experiences from additional initiatives in which our organization plays a role, including the International Partnership on Microbicides, which aims to end transmission of HIV; Children Without Worms, which works to end the infestation of parasitic worms in children, and text4baby, an innovative free mobile information service that provides pregnant women and new moms with information they need to take care of their own and their children’s health.

The Summit helped us see that while we are making significant inroads into global health through innovation, novel partnerships and access to medicines, there is still much to be done. I sincerely hope that the seeds planted last week in London will bear fruit in the form of new partnerships between industry, government, NGOs, and public and private entities. We know that continuing the dialogue we started at the Pacific Health Summit, as well as our ability to deliver new and innovative health solutions, globally and locally – will make a world of difference in the lives and health of millions.

The stories no longer dominate the newspaper headlines as they did in the weeks after the earthquake, but people in the devastated areas of Haiti continue to experience extreme difficulties.

Bill Lin, Director, Corporate Contributions, Johnson & Johnson recently traveled to Léogâne, Haiti, a city located west of Port-au-Prince and at the epicenter of the January 12^th earthquake. Among other activities, Bill was working with one of our nonprofit partners, CHF International, which is helping to provide housing for displaced families in Léogâne. There, the United Nations estimates up to 90 percent of buildings were damaged in the earthquake. I asked Bill a few questions about his experience on the ground in Haiti:

It’s now been 5 months since the earthquake. What were your initial observations about the situation in Haiti? 

While it looked like life had resumed on the streets, the trip was sobering for me. So many people are displaced and are still living in tent cities. The need for housing is so tremendous. 

What are the some of the health concerns facing the people of Haiti? 

Hurricane season began on June 1^st, presenting a new threat to those who are still living in tent cities and other temporary housing. Not only are people unsafe in these living conditions but there is great concern over the spread of waterborne disease—especially with the threat of hurricanes. That is why, in Haiti, Johnson & Johnson is providing more assistance for housing than we have during previous disaster relief efforts. 

What are some of the challenges in providing more permanent housing? 

Part of the relief effort with our partner CHF is to provide prefabricated housing for those who have lost their homes. While several complicating factors hinder efforts to provide more permanent housing for residents, the small number of heavy machinery available for demolition slows down attempts to remove rubble and rebuild. But you can’t build a house or school until the debris is removed, and much of that work is being done by hand. Using only hand tools and wheelbarrows, a team of ten can take up to a week to raze and clear the rubble of what was once a two story house. 

Since March, CHF has assembled cash-for-work teams and has also used some donated heavy machinery to remove more than 46,000 cubic meters of rubble from homes, schools, businesses, and other ruined buildings in Léogâne.

What other programs is the company focusing on in Haiti? 

In addition to providing assistance for housing, Johnson & Johnson is focusing on programs that restore health facilities especially in support of pregnant women and vulnerable children in Haiti, such as Save the Children and their work to create safe spaces for children who’ve been disconnected from their families. 

You can learn more about our efforts in Haiti and the partners we work with on our corporate website. Please visit their websites to find out how you can help.

From Katsura Tsuno, Director Corporate Contributions, Asia-Pacific, Johnson & Johnson

I still remember the sights and sounds that filled the maternity hospital in Manila when I visited in 2005. It was my first trip to the Philippines after taking a position in Corporate Contributions at Johnson & Johnson. Although the public hospital had been described as the largest for mothers and babies, to me, it looked more like an old train station. There was an emergency room inside with simple bedding, and a separate family waiting room with a ceiling, yet no walls – providing no refuge from the hot and humid weather. As I approached the delivery room, I noticed two pregnant women sprawled out on one bed. Newborn babies were the same – two babies shared each basket.  

When I finally reached the hospital room, I saw an overwhelming number of mothers and babies. Three to four pairs of mothers and babies lay horizontally on two beds connected to each other, also known as a tandem bed. As I surveyed the room, I could see that there were obviously not enough doctors and nurses. “The average income of a doctor working in the public sector is not better than the salary of a call center operator,” one doctor revealed. The crowded and under-funded hospital was daunting to me, yet the women with access to it were considered fortunate. I felt dizzy over the reality of it all.

The Philippines, with a population of almost 100 million, is growing nearly 2 percent annually with a fertility rate of more than three babies per woman. A third of the population is living below the poverty line. The country depends on almost 10 percent of its Gross Domestic Product from people working overseas. One of the country’s major exports is health care workers, mostly nurses. The majority of new nursing graduates in the Philippines decide to work abroad for better income. Even doctors – 80 percent in the public sector, opt to work overseas by converting their profession to nurses. This results in a significant shortage of health care workers in the country.

With such high birth rates, midwives are very important in the Philippines. Although midwives traditionally specialize in health for mothers and babies, in the Philippines their roles are much broader. The shortage of doctors and nurses makes it critical for midwives to expand their roles in community health, especially in rural areas of the country. For many people, midwives are the only health care workers they can access; therefore, midwives must play multiple roles. The working conditions for midwives are tough and their wages are not sufficient for the many hats they wear.

Despite their situations, many midwives are motivated to stay in their job in the country and play leadership roles in community health. Their dedication is critical for people’s health because midwives are often the lifelines for people in the Philippines, which is why we believe it’s extremely important to train and strengthen the skills of health care workers who decide to stay. One program in the Philippines – The Midwives Leadership Development Program – is doing just that. You can learn more about this program here.

All eyes are on South Africa at the opening of the 2010 World Cup. I learned about a cool project, Barefootball, that taps into the local and international passion for soccer while also promoting economic empowerment and environmental sustainability in South Africa.

So what is a “Barefootball”?

It starts with ingenuity: Across Africa, children and young adults who can’t afford a soccer ball simply make their own using available materials. Athol Moult is a South African artist who captured historic images of children playing soccer using these traditional, hand-made soccer balls. These images gave him the inspiration for the Barefootball project as a way to create financial opportunities for disadvantaged local communities while also reducing the amount of post-consumer waste in the environment.

Barefootballs traditionally have been crafted from a combination of recycled materials including  paper, vine, banana leaves, string, plastic and cloth. All profits made from the sale of Barefootballs will go back to the ball-makers—who usually support extended family members —and the local communities.

Johnson & Johnson (PTY) LTD in South Africa is a founding partner of the program. Laura Nel, Communication Manager at Johnson & Johnson (PTY) LTD explained that they wanted to celebrate the 2010 World Cup in South Africa in a way that would make a real difference to the lives of African people, through economic and environmental sustainability. Employees are also supporting the project by providing a portion of the post-consumer plastic material used to create Barefootballs.

To learn more, visit http://www.barefootball.com/.

Infection with intestinal worms isn’t something we often think about in developed countries. It’s a disease that thrives in the poorest areas of tropical and sub-tropical countries that have unsafe drinking water, poor sanitation and limited access to health care.

As Mark explained in this post about his trip to Nicaragua, Johnson & Johnson partners with the The Task Force for Global Health on the program Children Without Worms (CWW) to donate a deworming medication, mebendazole, to treat infected children in eight countries.

Bill Lin is Director, Corporate Contributions, Johnson & Johnson and is passionate about this program and working to keep children free of infection. He talked about the importance of prevention education and how medication is only one component of improving the health of at-risk children:

Why does the program focus on children?

400 million children are at risk of being infected with intestinal worms. Infection is especially devastating in children because it occurs at a critical time in their physical and cognitive development. Severe infections not only cause malnutrition, anemia, and impair development but can also leave them susceptible to other diseases.

What is the link between intestinal worms and poverty?

Infection with intestinal worms is a disease of poverty, caused by lack of sanitation and hygiene. Kids can become infected by eating a piece of contaminated fruit or by penetration through the skin when walking barefoot. If children are infected with intestinal worms and don’t feel well, then they don’t go to school and learn. If they can’t go to school, they are less likely to reach their full potential and have a fruitful and productive life. This is a contributing factor to the vicious cycle of poverty.

Why is prevention such an important component of the CWW program?

Addressing the root cause of the disease is crucial to breaking the cycle of transmission and reinfection. If you treat children with medication but don’t teach them how to prevent infection and the prevalence rate is high, kids play with each other or with their siblings and they can become infected again.

We work to increase partner collaboration with governments and organizations to break the cycle of infection through hygiene education and access to improved sanitation and clean water. (You can read a story on JNJ.com about a young girl, Fernanda, who has learned to keep herself healthy and prevent reinfection through the CWW program.)

How does the program build partnerships to maximize impact?

We partner with organizations already working in hygiene education and sanitation to ensure that the medication is distributed in a context that maximizes positive impact.

For example, some countries make hygiene education a huge component of the health education curriculum, and it is part of a teacher’s responsibilities. In Lao People’s Democratic Republic, hygiene education is incorporated into the teachers’ training curriculum. They teach children how to wash their hands before meals and wash fruits before they eat them. We are partnering with Helen Keller International to replicate the model from Lao People’s Democratic Republic and work with the education ministry to institute it in Cambodia.

From Mark Krajnak, Manager, Corporate Communication, Johnson & Johnson

April 7th is World Health Day. Late last year, I had the opportunity to travel to Nicaragua for a story we were working on for the Johnson & Johnson 2009 Annual Report and I had the chance to see how Johnson & Johnson is working to keep children free of infection.

The story, which you can read here, focuses on Fernanda, an active fourth grader who lives her family in Jinotepe, Nicaragua, about an hour or so away from Managua, the capital city of Nicaragua. But while Managua is very hustling and bustling and where most travelers go, Jinotepe is less visited but gives one a true taste of the culture and heritage of the country.

Unfortunately, Nicaragua is one of the second poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere and that’s what puts children like Fernanda and her brother Luis, at risk for infection with soil-transmitted helminths, or STH: roundworms, whipworms and hookworms.

About 400 million children worldwide are at risk of infection.  Found mostly in tropical and subtropical areas, STH is caused by a lack of clean water and sanitation. When Fernanda, and her little brother, Luis, are infected, they are listless, tired and don’t want to eat.

It’s quite easy to see how kids like Fernanda and Luis can get infected – if conditions aren’t sanitary, children get infected through contaminated food or when larvae penetrate the skin in the case of hookworms.

Johnson & Johnson is working to help defeat this infection. In 2005, Johnson & Johnson partnered with The Task Force for Global Health to create Children Without Worms (CWW), the first program to focus solely on global treatment and prevention of STH. Through CWW, Johnson & Johnson donates a deworming medication, mebendazole, which Fernanda and other kids receive on a yearly basis at school.

When I had the chance to visit with Fernanda and her family a few weeks before Christmas, they were all healthy and happy. Fernanda has a smile that lights up a room and Luis, like any 3 year old, doesn’t stop moving. Whether riding their bikes, playing on the swing set or kicking a soccer ball, they bore no trace of infection.

It was an eye-opening trip for me. And it was great for me to meet children like Fernanda and Luis who are directly affected by the work that Johnson & Johnson and our partners, like The Task Force for Global Health and CWW, do every day.