ReachAnother Foundation

🚌 Imagine needing surgery or follow-up care for your child... and the nearest place to get it is days away by bus. That used to be the reality for many families in Ethiopia.

🏥 One reason ReachAnother partners with 6 regional Centers of Excellence is to bring spina bifida and hydrocephalus care closer to home—not just for surgery, but also for the many follow-up visits and aftercare appointments that help children stay healthy.

When care is closer, families can spend less time traveling and more time focused on what matters most: their child's health and future.

People are always eager to learn when the information feels practical.

At our inaugural Alliance For Birth Defect in Ethiopia, we set up three “marketplace” learning tables: Prevention, Treatment, and Aftercare with simple displays and experts ready for questions. Guests absolutely loved it! They stopped, asked thoughtful questions, and stayed for in-depth conversations.

For many people, this was brand-new information about how to prevent and treat neural tube defects, and for our team, it was a reminder that awareness grows fastest when people can learn in a practical and welcoming way.❤️

ReachAnother often serves as a connector, helping bring champions together across borders. 🤝

As part of Dr. Kibru’s pediatric neurosurgery fellowship with Children’s Hospital Colorado, Dr. Michael Handler just visited the new Zewditu Center of Excellence in Pediatric Neurosurgery in Addis Ababa. The focus was hands-on mentorship, working side by side on complex pediatric brain tumor cases, as well as multidisciplinary team discussions and educational activities with the broader surgical team.

In Dr. Kibru’s words, "Dr. Handler's presence was highly valuable in consolidating my surgical training and exposing our team to different operative techniques and decision-making strategies."

Zoom is fine… but this is better. 😊

We spend so much time coordinating across oceans and time zones that it’s easy to forget how fun and productive work can be when you’re simply in the same room.

Our Ethiopia office has become a real home base for the work and for the teamwork. So grateful for this time together.

Because spina bifida care is complex, it’s always better when we learn alongside others who care about the same issues. ReachAnother is proud to be part of the Spina Bifida Global Learning Collaborative (SBGLC): a global group sharing ideas, resources, and real-world lessons to improve prevention and lifelong care for spina bifida.🌎

Proof that our Ethiopia trips aren’t all meetings and site visits! A few weeks ago, we celebrated birthdays for two remarkable humans: Yakob Ahmed, ReachAnother Ethiopia Country Director, and Patricia O’Neill, ReachAnother President.

It was a fun evening of friendship, laughter, and cake, and a sweet break in the middle of a very full (and meaningful) trip. We are grateful for all that they do for ReachAnother and the community!

🌍 Dr. Nebiyat, ReachAnother’s Technical Director, was invited by GAIN to attend the World Health Assembly in Geneva.

He spent last week listening, learning, and speaking up for prevention; the idea that we shouldn’t only treat spina bifida and hydrocephalus after birth, but also prevent as many cases as we can through folic acid and food fortification.

This kind of advocacy matters because it connects the work happening in Ethiopian hospitals to the policy conversations that shape maternal and child health worldwide. 🤝

🏥 What happens in the first few hours after birth can make a huge difference. With the progress and equipment these hospitals have, many newborns were able to receive surgery within that early window—something that hasn’t always been possible. ❤️

Yesterday, we celebrated the handover of three new neurosurgical microscopes to teaching hospitals: Gondar, Gondar University Hospital, TibebeGihon Specialized Hospital, and Hiwotfana Comprehensive Specialized Hospital, alongside leaders from Ethiopia’s health system.

These microscopes will help neurosurgical teams work with greater precision and confidence. They will bring advanced care closer to families who too often have had to travel far for treatment for their children. 💛

We are grateful to The Helmsley Charitable Trust and to the hospital and government partners who made this possible. Moments like this are a reminder that progress is built through steady, practical investments that strengthen Ethiopia’s own capacity to care for children and families. 🙌