How We Started
Hope Without Borders was started in the hearts of Lance Parve and Julie Parve back in the early 1980’s, while doing medical, engineering, construction and community outreach work at a regional hospital in rural central Somalia from 1984-1986. During that time they fell in love with the people of Africa and realized how important community development was. Many of the assisting non-governmental organizations and international agencies did relief work, but only a few focused on community development and long-term sustainable successes.
Returning to the U.S. to further their educations, they planned to return internationally to make even more of a difference. While in the U.S., both have been active serving those living in poverty in central Milwaukee. Their work locally involves providing health care and skills training to the underserved including refugees and helping families in need. They have witnessed injustices, inequities and disparities to those burdened by poverty both in America and in Africa.
In 2007, Hope Without Borders was launched and they travel worldwide with multi-disciplinary professionals in search of developing communities interested in partnering to work on projects to achieve sustainable community development. Effective partnering requires developing communities to be actively involved in planning, project decision-making, innovative alternatives, methods/means, appropriate technologies, implementation, mobilizing resources/funding and monitoring outcomes to integrate local indigenous and breakthrough external technical solutions. Developing communities must supply a portion of the funding and/or labor in initiating, planning, designing, implementing and monitoring projects to take ownership and ensure continuation of program and projects successes.
