The Wood Foundation

In October 2016 The Wood Foundation committed to a four-year partnership with the ARCHIE Foundation to support their ongoing work in creating and resourcing paediatric surgeries in low income African countries. The programme will cost a total of £1 million over four years, including an £800,000 contribution from The Wood Foundation (TWF). Based in Aberdeen, the ARCHIE Foundation is a charity largely focused on making a big difference for local children when they are sick, in hospital, or in long-term healthcare. However, more recently, they have been raising funds for children's surgeries in Africa. With support of long time ARCHIE supporter Craig Ferguson, The ARCHIE Foundation carried out their first overseas projects in Uganda providing a dedicated children's safe surgery operating theatre in Kampala, and a second in Gulu. Health care staff in low income countries do not lack the training to use good facilities, their professional standards are every bit as good as those found in the UK, but they often lack the equipment and associated training for local technicians to maintain such equipment. With the right people and facilities in place, projects such as this can quickly begin to save lives. Within the first few hours of the first ARCHIE global surgery opening in Kampala, several lifesaving procedures were carried out, serving to highlight the great need and success of the facility. The ARCHIE Foundation and TWF will work in partnership to develop and install an additional eight children's safe surgery operating theatres in East Africa over four years, from 2017 to 2020. The next two surgeries will be constructed in Malawi and Tanzania.