Corrections_Today_Fall_2025_Vol.87_No.3

COMMITTEES

Health Through Walls

healththroughwalls.org

Your contributions will: – Fund clinical missions that deliver essential care. – Purchase life-changing medical supplies and equipment. – Develop training programs for sustainable healthcare solutions. – Provide essential medications to those in need. Health through Walls is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Your donation is tax-deductible and makes a direct impact.

If you know of a resource, opportunity, or connection that could help, please contact: info@healththroughwalls.org If you would like to contribute or donate please visit: https://healththroughwalls.org

Hope alone will not save these critical programs. Action might.

wonderful help we had received from the local team over the last week. Our total numbers were an nounced for the mission as follows: – 550 patients screened – 56 presumptive positive TB cases sent for sputum testing – 25 new HIV cases diagnosed The next day, we all packed into a van and drove back to the capital of Maputo. Flights would be trickling out over the next 48 hours and this was effectively our last night together as a team. We went to Dhow, which is arguably the nicest restaurant in the country. This was a jarring experi ence after having been immersed in the conditions we were in over the last few days. Someone made the reference that it was like The Hunger

Games and we were suddenly back in the opulence of District 1. At dinner, I sat next to Ivan and learned that, due to recent USAID funding cuts, Health through Walls had lost the vast majority of its op erating budget and had been forced to lay off nearly 30% of its staff. The justification for dismantling USAID has often been rooted in claims of fraud or inappropriate spending. Maybe there’s some truth to that. But it is abundantly clear to me that many — if not most — organizations receiving USAID funding, like Health through Walls, are doing critical, life-saving work across the globe. Another argument used to defend these cuts is equally mis guided: that international aid

doesn’t benefit the American people and therefore should be eliminated. What this narrative fails to grasp is the immense value of soft power. U.S.-backed aid programs foster goodwill, stability and positive in fluence in regions where extremism could otherwise take root. Aban doning this role under a narrow nationalistic agenda risks damaging America’s image and destabilizing the very regions we have an interest in keeping stable. But even if we entertain these arguments — even if we pretend there’s merit in them — it doesn’t change the reality on the ground: gutting aid programs in deeply under-resourced areas is nothing short of cruelty. It will cost lives.

Corrections Today | Fall 2025

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