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Gratis Fund

Hesperian's Gratis Fund acknowledges and responds to the reality that often, those who most need our publications are the least able to afford them. On average we receive 200 requests for free books per month. Letters come in from rural villages and urban shantytowns around the world. They are sent by community health workers, school teachers, medical students and others who are desperate for resources to help them better serve their communities.

In the hands of a motivated health worker or community leader, each package of Hesperian publications can — and does — have an immediate and positive impact. For example:

A teacher uses Where There Is No Doctor to educate others about cholera prevention and management during the rainy season. For the first time there are no fatalities in his community.
A health worker properly administers anesthesia and extracts an abscessed tooth, without causing any pain to the patient, after reading Where There Is No Dentist.
By carefully following the step-by-step instructions in A Book For Midwives, a midwife successfully delivers a breech-birth baby for the first time.

The Gratis Fund is entirely run by volunteers — from volunteer book packers, to its coordinator Lee Gallery. Gallery carefully evaluates each request to make sure that the people asking for the manuals will use them to benefit a larger community in need, tracks the books we send, and reads every thank you letter before passing it on to other Hesperian staff to appreciate.

The multitude of testimonials we receive from Gratis Fund recipients reaffirms that this very low-budget program makes a significant impact in the health of marginalized people around the world.

Between July 2008 and June 2009 Hesperian shipped 2,103 books (plus hundreds of booklets and newsletters) to 52 countries, as well as communities in the United States. Receiving the majority of these shipments were African countries requesting copies of Where There Is No Doctor, followed by Where Women Have No Doctor and HIV, Health and Your Community. We typically send a package of two books to each community, which costs Hesperian an average of $40-$60 per package.