Global insurance benefits and assistance services company International Medical Group (IMG) has announced the winners of its seventh annual Leave Your Mark Grant.

The two winning organisations are Helping Children Worldwide and Village to Village, each receiving $2,500.

The five winning individuals are Erika Wynne-Motsa, Richard and Lauree Hayden, Peter Morris, John Matthew Crawford, and Jake Nagy, each receiving $1,000.

Helping Children Worldwide works to strengthen and empower children, their families, and their communities throughout the world, and one of the ways they do this is by addressing the causes of maternal mortality. In 2024, Helping Children Worldwide will be training midwives in Sierra Leone to improve the quality of services offered in maternal and newborn health.

“IMG’s gift of $2,500 will support the training of 50 midwives in Sierra Leone on life-saving obstetric and newborn skills,” said Helping Children Worldwide’s Technical Advisor for Global Health and Missions, Yasmine Vaughan. “We thank IMG for partnering with Helping Children Worldwide on this initiative of making it safer for women to give birth and protecting mothers as foundational members of their communities.”

Village to Village helps increase self-sufficiency in communities of Guatemala, Moldova, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Paraguay, and various parts of the United States. Village to Village does this through a variety of initiatives such as job training, cooking classes, providing access to clean water, English classes, and more. In Africa, the non-profit also helps women obtain microloans to start their own businesses and provide for their families.

“We are so excited to put these funds from the Leave Your Mark Grant toward the camps we host for orphans in Moldova as well as the microloans we provide to women in Africa,” said Gentry Washburn, Village to Village’s Marketing Manager and Sponsorship Coordinator. “We are grateful to IMG for awarding us $2,500 for our global outreach efforts, allowing us to assist more communities in becoming self-sufficient.”

Inspiring individuals

The five individual Leave Your Mark winners support a wide range of mission and social good organisations working around the world.

Winners’ funds will be used to support several initiatives including childbirth education in Eswatini, access to food and education for a village in India, physical and spiritual needs for the San Antonia Aguas Calientes community of Guatemala, agriculture training in Liberia, and child sponsorship and school building in Oaxaca, Mexico.

“Each year, it’s an absolute pleasure to choose such deserving organisations and individuals as recipients of the Leave Your Mark Grant,” said Amanda Winkle, IMG Chief Operating Officer. “At IMG, we are passionate about supporting the work of mission and social good organisations, and I am excited to see how each of these winners will make a positive impact in the communities they serve.”