Tom Johnson, Founder of Africa Surgery
September 24, 2017
Tom Johnson, Jr., a former Peace Corps volunteer who founded the non-profit, Africa Surgery, in 2003 will talk about his work in Sierra Leone. Africa Surgery, a non-profit organization, provides health care and surgical services to needy people in Sierra Leone.
Raised in Morristown, NJ, Tom Johnson, Jr., served two years as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer in Sierra Leone, West Africa (1989-91), working with farmers on tree crops and beekeeping projects. He was there at the beginning of the rebel war which ravaged the country from 1991 until 2001. The war, which was named the most brutal of the 1990’s by the United Nations, saw the maiming and killing of thousands and disrupted farming, education, and the immunization programs against such diseases as polio and tuberculosis. This conflict also saw the almost complete destruction of the small country’s medical infrastructure which was already very weak, leaving the Sierra Leonean people with virtually no medical care. Tom’s desire to help the people of Sierra Leone led him to revisit the country when their civil war was ending in December, 2001, and he began to facilitate surgical treatments for some of those in need. He now spends five months a year there, aiding patients and helping surgeons, physicians, and foreign medical-mission teams.
To help Tom carry on his efforts, Africa Surgery, Inc. (ASI) was incorporated in the State of New Jersey and registered with the Federal Government as a 501-c-3 not-for-profit organization in February, 2007. Their mission statement reads: “Africa Surgery, Inc. (ASI) is a non-profit service organization dedicated to bringing healing, promoting health, encouraging education and offering hope to ill and suffering African people, and especially to those in Sierra Leone, through the combined efforts of Africans, Americans, and other people in pursuit of this common goal.”
See Africa Surgery video here.