GOAL USA, Inc.

To promote through our programs in several areas the escape from poverty and hunger, and to respond in dire humanitarian emergencies around the globe. Our program areas include healthcare, crisis recovery, community development, education, livelihoods development, food distribution, HIV and AIDS, integrated development and slum development programs, WASH/ watsan (water, sanitation and hygiene), children at risk, and nutrition.

Emergency Response, Disaster Preparedness and Mitigation

GOAL responds to emergencies as they arise, and seeks to meet the needs of victims insofar as our capacities will allow. An initial GOAL emergency response will normally include water, food and sanitation distributions, as well as the provision of emergency healthcare, emergency and transitional shelters and cash-for-work or emergency cash transfer programs. We also train communities on disaster-preparedness and risk reduction in many disaster-prone regions of the developing world.

Crisis Recovery

As the title suggests, crisis recovery is a GOAL intervention to help populations recover from an extreme emergency situation. The initial crisis may have been natural, such as the earthquake in Haiti, famine in Niger, or the south-east Asian tsunami, or a manmade disaster, as in the post-election violence in Nigeria or the civil conflict in Northern Uganda. Crisis recovery is by definition a process, and is intended to aid recovery and a (usually gradual) return to normality by the communities most affected. Each GOAL crisis recovery intervention must be specifically designed to cater to the particular, often multifarious, immediate, medium and long term needs of the victims.

Healthcare

GOAL health programs can include direct healthcare provision, and the building and equipping of health center and the training of local staff in their management.
We also operate emergency feeding, feeding for the vulnerable, and extensive inoculation program, and train local communities in health awareness and hygiene promotion.

Community Development

GOAL seeks to empower individuals and groups of people in many parts of the developing world by providing them with some of the skills they need to affect positive change in their communities. Within most communities there is enormous potential which, if assisted, encouraged and properly harnessed, can create significant long-term sustainable benefit for the entire locale.
GOAL helps identify common concerns, and can provide training and opportunities for the community to learn new skills with a view to addressing such concerns. Where appropriate, we will assist the community to build relationships with political representatives and other key people and organisations.
By enabling people to act together to common advantage, our community development program foster social inclusion, create equal opportunities, and enhance the lives of beneficiaries.

Education

GOAL is a firm advocate of education as one of the few possible escape routes out of poverty in the developing world. Consequently, where it is feasible we implement extensive formal and non-formal education program.
The former can include the (re-) building and furnishing of schools, pre-school preparatory work with street and slum-dwelling children, and support for pupils through the provision of stationery, uniforms and school fees.

Our partners include: People In Aid , ALNAP, InsideNGO, CRED, The Inter-Agency Procurement Group, the Irish Joint Consortium on Gender Based Violence, The Irish Development Education Association (IDEA), CORE Group, The Active School Flag (ASF), The Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA), The European Interagency Security Forum (EISF), USAID, OFDA and more.

GOAL has expanded our presence in the USA in 2015 specifically, while we coordinate with headquarters in Dublin.

Here are some milestones in GOAL's global history:

1977: GOAL began supporting mother and child healthcare programs in the villages of West Bengal.

1979. GOAL was one of the first Western agencies to enter Cambodia after genocide had claimed over 2 million lives, bringing essential medicines and food supplies to a traumatized population. In the same year, GOAL established operations in Uganda in the wake of the Karamoja famine, where over 20% of the population starved to death.

1984: Having been given early warning by Irish missionaries based in Ethiopia of an impending famine, GOAL already had medical teams in the country when a humanitarian crisis began that would eventually claim over one million lives, and directly threaten eight million more. GOALies went immediately to the worst affected areas of a human catastrophe of barely imaginable scale. GOAL medical teams worked 7 days a week for months on end on the frontline in extremely harrowing conditions, to keep thousands of starving adults and children alive. A massive vaccination program for vulnerable children was implemented and 20,000 families and innumerable children were fed daily.

1994: GOAL provided emergency aid and assistance after the Rwandan genocide in which 800,000 people were slaughtered. When 40,000 people died in a cholera epidemic in the refugee camps around Goma, Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)) GOALies organised the burial of bodies. GOAL worked with Rwandan populations who were living in DRC and Tanzania

1997: In Bosnia-Herzegovina, GOAL repaired infrastructure in Gorazde town by completing water and sewage systems for refugee centers. GOAL also built 68 new apartments for displaced people and renovated a pharmaceutical distribution center and a sports hall.

2003: GOAL began implementing health and nutrition programmes in Darfur, Western Sudan, providing emergency support to hundreds of thousands of displaced people.

2009: GOAL emergency nutrition and health response programs in Ethiopia are expanded to meet growing food insecurity throughout the country. GOAL completed the construction of its 1,000th house for families who are affected by HIV and Aids in Uganda, and built 100 homes for vulnerable orphans, and built over 40 schools in Malawi. In India, 120,000 children benefited from the provision by GOAL of improved water and sanitation facilities in slum-area schools, a program that is continually being expanded to encompass other slum areas.

2010: GOAL responded to three major humanitarian crises - in Haiti, Pakistan, and Niger – and continued with our programs in 9 other developing countries. For example, in Uganda our house-building program for orphans and vulnerable people continued apace, while in Soutt Sudan, GOAL remains the sole provider of primary healthcare services to 350,000