“Ships bring­ing heal­ing” is the motto under which hos­pital ships from this inter­national devel­opment organ­isa­tion have been provid­ing med­ical aid since 1978 to some of the poorest coun­tries in the world. Since 2020 we have been part­ner­ing with Mercy Ships e.V. in Ger­many and mak­ing fin­ancial con­tri­butions to ortho­paedic and sur­gical oper­ations, mainly for chil­dren.

How­ever the work of Mercy Ships does not stop at the ship’s rail­ing. The organ­isa­tion achieves sus­tain­abil­ity in its mis­sion by train­ing local med­ical per­son­nel, and with med­ical fol­low-up care for patients on land.

In 2022 we were able to gain a first-hand impres­sion of the largest civil­ian hos­pital ship in the world, the new “Global Mercy”, at her nam­ing cere­mony in Rot­ter­dam, before she embarked on her first mis­sion to Africa. The view­ing tour on board and present­ations by the Mercy Ships founder and one of its sur­geons showed in an inspir­ing way the pas­sion of all con­cerned, as they fol­low their aim of chan­ging lives and bring­ing heal­ing.

The high­light of this cooper­ation so far has been the “vis­ion trip” in Septem­ber 2024 in Sierra Leone. Together with two mem­bers of the Ger­man Mercy Ships office staff and rep­res­ent­atives from another found­ation, Katja Jüngst and Prof. Heinz-Her­bert Homann, mem­ber of the health com­mit­tee of the Aumund Found­ation, spent a week on board the ship.

The com­pre­hens­ive insights into all aspects, the trans­par­ent com­munic­ation and the uncom­prom­ising com­mit­ment of the entire team con­vinced us that there is a basis for sig­nific­ant expan­sion of this pro­ject part­ner­ship.