Advocates For World Health

While most college students are focused on their GPAs, Ryan Kania was busy forming a nonprofit organization. He founded Advocates for World Health (AWH) in 2009 while a student at University of South Florida in Tampa.

The inspiration to create the organization struck when Kania was volunteering abroad. He saw firsthand the hardship resulting from the lack of medical supplies.

“On the last day of my volunteer trip to Guatemala in 2008, shock overwhelmed me as I watched another man’s life end while his family paced back and forth near me. The physicians were unable to treat the gunshot wound to his chest because they lacked medical supplies,” Kania says. “The pain endured by the victim and his family haunted me, and I felt an obligation to help.”

And so was born AWH.

The organization provides surplus medical products to under-served clinics and hospitals overseas. It does this by redirecting usable medical supplies to foreign healthcare providers and preventing viable equipment from entering the waste stream.

Kania is eager to spread the word about AWH – especially since the organization hasn’t regularly used promotional products in the past. Kania intends to use his ePromos for Good win to purchase logo t-shirts for staff, volunteers, and board members.

“We want to give our people nice, comfortable t-shirts that they’ll want to wear while out and about or coming to work,” he says. “We want them to always be wearing the t-shirts.”

Learn more about Advocates for World Health at https://awhealth.org.