Introduction
In 2019, The Leprosy Mission launched a new Global Strategy, not knowing the turmoil that the years ahead would hold for our world. As a result of the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the 2019-2023 Global Strategy was extended to 2024 as the pandemic disrupted healthcare services and development in every part of the globe.
Now, in 2024, we review the impact of this Global Strategy and can be justifiably proud of the fact that lives have been transformed every day since 2019 and the path to leprosy being defeated has never looked clearer or more achievable.
With the right resources and investment, we could be the generation that ends leprosy.
Over the coming pages you will see the ways in which our collective work since 2019 has moved the dial in the fight to end leprosy and transform lives. Across transmission, disability and discrimination, we have pushed forward and made a difference.
Between 2019 and 2024 we committed to research new innovations to end transmission and we successfully worked together on new and better ways to prevent leprosy and on diagnostic tests that could prove to be game changers.
In that time period, we committed to investing in the inner wellbeing of persons affected by leprosy and now that work is more substantial and more transformative than it has ever been before.
Over the course of that strategy, we committed to ensuring persons affected by leprosy could be at the centre of efforts to challenge injustice and today our connections with Organisations of Persons Affected by Leprosy (OPLs) have never been stronger, never been a better reason to feel hopeful.
These are just some of the great successes of the past five years. I hope you will enjoy reading about more of these successes throughout this progress report.
Although the pandemic, conflict, and economic challenges of these years have been substantial, in 2019 we committed to rely on ‘Jehovah Nissi’ (the Lord is our banner) and ‘Jehovah Jireh’ (the Lord will provide). The Lord was our banner throughout this period and he never ceased to provide. We have reasons to celebrate and be proud, but all of the glory goes to God.
Brent Morgan
TLM International Director
