Variety Children's Lifeline provides medical teams and surgical assistance to underprivileged children in developing countries, primarily in pediatric cardiac surgery.

Multidisciplinary voluntary missions and/or partnerships with local hospitals are the key to our goal for these countries to achieve independence in their ability to provide appropriate medical care to their children.

Our aim is to help our host hospitals to achieve independence in their ability to provide the appropriate medical care to their children.

Variety Children’s Lifeline brings children requiring highly technical care to appropriate facilities in the United States or elsewhere.

Dear Lifeliners and Friends of Lifeline,

I want to address a very serious problem that Variety Children’s Lifeline is facing. It is a problem that, certainly, with respect to most of Africa, is a question of life or death.

During the past two years we have chosen to assist medical missions to Africa, mostly in conjunction with Lighthouse Medical Mission Teams led by Dr. Robert Hamilton, who has become a significant ally. His missions are admirable, joined by doctors, nurses, pharmacists, volunteers and most professionals who are important to the success of such missions. Many pay their own way, devote valuable time and give whatever they may have in skills or money.

We have found that the scourge has been the lack of healthy water. The diseases we have encountered include dysentery, diarrhea, worms, malaria, and typhoid - all water related diseases. While the medical missions have been a success per se, the environmental element does not change.

We have to eradicate the cause if we wish to succeed in the long term in treating those infected. This means very simply that our sister organization, Water for Life International, has to be strengthened to permit us to do so. We are in the midst of developing a campaign to secure the funds necessary to have the water treatment units needed for a successful effort. We shall write you more on this; but, if we have simultaneous mechanisms to provide potable water to those whose diseases are a result of untreated water then we have succeeded. If we do not, then we will be treading water.

Sincerely yours,

Salah M. Hassanein