ICROSS

International Community for the relief of starvation and suffering ICROSS

International non-governmental organization founded by Dr T Michael Elmore-Meegan, Dr Joseph Barnes and Dr Thomas O'Riordan in 1979. Specialises in long term primary health, community health care and public health. International headquarters Ngong, Rift Valley, Kenya. [1] where Elmore-Meegan has lived among Nomads since 1980.

Also in Canada [2] and Ireland as well as Tanzania. International community for relief of starvation and suffering has a long established research programme with collaborations around the World [3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15]

Its work in International health is widely recognized [16 ,17] with key international lectures [18] most recently the RedR Future shocks lecture , [19] Disasters and relief in a changing world. ICROSS has received numerous awards and is responsible for one of the largest Terminal care programmes in Africa and a series of innovative public health programmes. It is known for its policies of Africanisation long before cultural community ownership was popular. It has close working relationships with David Morley one of the pioneers of tropical child health, and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. Together they have pioneered Solar disinfection of contaminated drinking water completing the first control trials of SODIS. [20] . ICROSS [1] is widely cited in International media [21] . The work of ICROSS was the subject of a documentary "when you say 4,000 goodbyes" a multi award winning film by Irish Television [22] [23] and numerous books including ALL WILL BE WELL, Surprised by Joy and Changing the World [24,25,26]

Professor Ronan Conroy and Dr Michael Meegan have also written a newbook 100 ways to change the World. ICROSS has launched a new series oflong term public health interventions driven by local belief systemsand traditional tribal values. ICROSS is pioneering alternativeapproaches to supporting commercial sex work health and reducingharm in tribal populations.

ICROSS programmes receive many other visitors. Links to pictures from visitors to these programmes include 27, 28, below.

1 www.icross.ie

2 www.icross.ca

3 Elmore-Meegan M, Conroy RM, Agala CB. Sex workers in Kenya,numbers of clients and associated risks: an exploratory survey. Reprod Health Matters 2004;12(23):50-7.

4 Meegan ME, Conroy RM, Lengeny SO, Renhault K, Nyangole J. Effect on neonatal tetanus mortality after a culturally-based health promotion programme. Lancet 2001;358(9282):640-1.

5 Conroy RM, Meegan ME, Joyce T, McGuigan K, Barnes J. Solar disinfection of drinking water protects against cholera in children under 6 years of age. Arch Dis Child 2001;85(4):293-5.

6 Meegan M, Morley DC. Growth monitoring: family participation: effective community development. Trop Doct 1999;29(1):23-7.

7 Conroy RM, Meegan ME, Joyce T, McGuigan K, Barnes J. Solar disinfection of water reduces diarrhoeal disease: an update. Arch Dis Child 1999;81(4):337-8.

8 Meegan M, Morley D, Chavasse D. Fly traps. Lancet 1997;349(9055):886.

9 Meegan M, Morley DC, Brown R. Child weighing by the unschooled: a report of a controlled study of growth monitoring over 12 months of Maasai children using direct recording scales. Trans R Soc Trop Med Hyg 1994;88(6):635-7.

10 Conroy RM, Meegan ME. Dwindling donor aid for health programmes in developing countries. Lancet 1994;343(8907):1228-9.

11 Meegan MK. Rethinking famine relief. Lancet 1992;340(8830):1293-4.

12 Konings E, Anderson RM, Morley D, O'Riordan T, Meegan M. Rates of sexual partner change among two pastoralist southern Nilotic groups in east Africa. Aids 1989;3(4):245-7.

13 Meegan M, McCormick J. Prevention of disease in the poor world. Lancet 1988;2(8603):152-3.

14 Meegan M. Starvation and suffering. Lancet 1983;2(8365-66):1506.

15 Meegan M. The reality of starvation and disease. Lancet 1981;1 (8212):146.

16 http://boes.org/coop/ptlisti_m.html

17 http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/actionnetwork/A4348433

18 http://www.hrb.ie/display_content.php?page_id=24&press_release_id=119

19 http://www.redr.org.uk/en/Get_Involved/Events/Conference.cfm?CFID=201&CFTOKEN=FD4BAE33-10C7-420E-84A7FD10A72148AF

20 http://www.rcsi.ie/sodis/partners/icross.htm

21 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/hardtalk/4675531.stm

22 http://www.radharc.ie/downloads/Radharc_Award2006_Press_Release_050506.pdf

23 http://www.rte.ie/tv/programmesales/whenyousay4000goodbyes.html

24 http://www.newsfromnowhere.org.uk/books/DisplayBookInfo.php?ISBN=1903070279

25 http://www.newsfromnowhere.org.uk/books/DisplayBookInfo.php?ISBN=1905379056

26 http://shop.brownsbooks.co.uk/BookItem.aspx?item=9781903070444

27 http://www.flickr.com/groups/384052@N23/

28 http://www.flickr.com/photos/icross_rcsi/

29 Canadian Army Veteran Motorcycle Units (CAV) 2007 ICROSS Humanitarian Award