Recent Organizational Achievements

• November 2006 – Foundation for Tiyatien Health’s work on rural healthcare and HIV/AIDS is laid when impoverished rural Liberian women infected with HIV work with TH staff to design a comprehensive HIV care program, ultimately the HIV Equity Initiative, focused on poverty reduction and inequalities.  The life narratives of these rural Liberian women affected by AIDS are shared with the President of Liberia, Honorable Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, and her Minister of Health, Honorable Dr. Walter Gwenigale.
• March 2007 – Tiyatien Health and Ministry of Health launch HIV Equity Initiative and begin Grand Gedeh County’s first HIV patient on antiretroviral treatment.  Within two years, more than 150 patients will be in care—the largest rural HIV treatment program in Liberia. 

• November 2007 – Tiyatien Health and the Liberian National AIDS & STI Control Program release its first official report on Liberia's HIV Equity Initiative, documenting dramatic impact on AIDS mortality and treatment retention at 6 months of implementation.

• January 2008 – Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University's Center for AIDS Research invites Tiyatien's HIV Equity Initiative to join its HIV Online Provider Education (HOPE) network.  Tiyatien is one of very few rural clinics which has been invited into the HOPE network.

• March 2008 – Tiyatien receives over $100,000 in funding and in-kind support from the UNHCR and OFID to finance its HIV Equity Initiative.

• July 2008 – Tiyatien welcomes its new medical director, Dr. David Okiror, formerly with the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative in Liberia.  In addition to providing HIV care, Dr. Okiror is one of only two physicians providing obstetric, pediatric and medical care to Grand Gedeh’s catchment area of over 100,000 people.

• August 2008 – In an abstract joined by the Liberian Minister of Health, Dr. Walter Gwenigale, Tiyatien Health and the Liberian Ministry of Health and Social Welfare present findings of the HIV Equity Initiative at the XVII International AIDS Conference in Mexico City. 

• August 2008 - Liberian Ministry of Health partners with Tiyatien to launch first rural Chronic Care Clinic to integrate and strengthen HIV/TB and primary healthcare in Zwedru, Liberia.  This is the only rural center targeting chronic conditions—including asthma, hypertension, diabetes, and congestive heart failure—in Liberia.

• August 2008 - Tiyatien Health members, in collaboration with Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, publish research in the Journal of the American Medical Association, finding that Liberian fighters exposed to sexual violence experience more mental health disorders in aftermath the of the war. 

• August 2008 - Tiyatien Executive Director, Dr. Rajesh Panjabi, along with physicians from Partners in Health and Harvard University, publish an article in the Lancet outlining the role of illness narratives in conflict and post-conflict regions.
• October 2008 – Tiyatien Health Executive Director, Dr. Rajesh Panjabi, delivers keynote presentation at 15^th annual Partners in Health Thomas J. White Symposium, “Pushing the Boundaries: Past, Present and Future” at Sanders Theatre at Harvard University.

• October 2008 – Tiyatien supports more than 150 HIV positive patients and has helped provide testing, counseling, and prevention services for many more.
• November 2008 – Tiyatien Health invited to join National Mental Health Policy Committee, which will draft Liberia’s first national policy and plan on mental health.
• January 2009 – Tiyatien Health works with National Tuberculosis Control Program, Clinton Foundation and Partners in Health to diagnose first cases of multi-drug resistant tuberculosis in Liberia.