The Good Samaritan Foundation
The Good Samaritan Foundation was founded by Saint John Paul II on September 12, 2004, upon the proposal of the Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers to promote a foundation to help populations in the battle against illnesses such as AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, mostly in but not limited to Africa.
The aim of the Foundation is to economically support the ill who are most in need, and particularly AIDS patients. For this reason, ever since its establishment, the Foundation has helped hundreds of thousands of people throughout various continents, granting economic funds for projects of various nature – distributed principally in the health care sector – and distributing free medicine, medical devices, tools and foodstuffs. Promoting greater awareness on the AIDS virus, its transmission and prevention, to prevent vertically-transmitted cases from mother to child and allowing all patients access to care and treatment based on antiretroviral drugs are among the Foundation’s main tasks.
The Foundation is presently entrusted to the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development and is governed by its own Council of Administration accordingly to the norms in its Statutes.
See the Press release on the establishment of the Foundation.