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Through the Company’s Project Apollo program and in collaboration with international relief organizations such as Mercy Ships, Hope Children’s Medical Missions, Samaritan’s Purse, and Orthopaedics Overseas, Smith & Nephew donates products, provides healthcare information, medical and technical consulting, and textbooks for students in underdeveloped countries throughout the world.  In 2007, we teamed up with a number of such organizations to address better medical care around the world and particularly in developing countries. 
 
For example, we worked with Dr. Goran Bekhtyar, an ethnic Kurd who fled Iraq in 1974 and is now president of Improved Health System for Iraq, a non-profit organization based in Franklin, Tennessee (USA).  This group’s mission is to expand access and enhance the quality of medical services to the Iraqi people.  Along with surgical instruments and other medical equipment, we provided enough screws and plates to treat at least 5,000 patients.  In Dr. Bekhtyar words, “We appreciate Smith & Nephew’s generosity and the interest of the Company’s key executives in our mission of improving the quality of health care in our country.  Every product donated is important especially to surgeons who are using products from 40 years ago.  But the surgical instruments will perhaps have the greatest impact as they will be available to the surgeons long after the last of the donated plates and screws have been placed in patients.” 

While corporate dollars will always be critical in helping communities meet their social needs, of equal importance is our ability to motivate and energize employees throughout the organization to become social advocates within their respective cultures.  At Smith & Nephew we are very fortunate to have a workforce that embraces and energetically participates in community outreach programs. 

In 2007, the Company’s Memphis-based employees personally contributed/raised over $300,000 through company-endorsed fundraisers for such organizations as the Arthritis Foundation Walk, the Church Health Center’s Race for Grace, Komen Breast Cancer Race for the Cure,  ArtsMemphis Employee Campaign, and the United Way Employee Campaign just to name a few.  The cumulative impact that our employees have on community programs goes far beyond the company-endorsed activities captured here.  Our employees’ social interests are diverse and wide-ranging and they participate in numerous community endeavors that are not captured by our tracking system.         

Also, many of our employees share their time and professional expertise serving on local and national non-profit boards and committees such as the Arthritis Foundation, Alzheimer’s Day Services, Memphis BioWorks Foundation, Memphis Tomorrow, Orthopaedic Surgical Manufacturers Association, InMotion Musculoskeletal Institute, American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, Memphis Academy of Science and Engineering, and the United Way of the Mid-South. 

During 2007 we established the Smith & Nephew/Dr. Robert R. Tooms Endowed Nursing Scholarship at the Baptist College of Health Sciences in Memphis, Tennessee (USA).  We also established the Smith & Nephew Excellence in Engineering Scholarship at the University of Memphis Herff College of Engineering.  The first scholarships from these two programs will be awarded in 2008 and 2009, respectively.  Education is second only to health and human services in our community outreach focus and consequently we view these scholarships as excellent ways to support higher education and the community while furthering our interest in these focus areas.       

In late 2007, we partnered with the Bone and Joint Decade (2002-USA-2011) to pilot a special educational program, Protect your Bones & Joints (PB&J).  This is an exciting educational program designed to improve high school students’ knowledge about musculoskeletal disorders such as arthritis, osteoporosis, sports and road-related trauma and give them ways to lower the occurrence of these disorders.  In spring of 2008, the PB&J program was taken into several city and county schools including our two Adopt-a-Schools, Memphis Academy of Science & Engineering and Central High School.   Campbell’s Clinic partnered with us by providing staff professionals to teach the classes.  In all, we did 43 classes for a total of 1,117 students.  The feedback from both students and teachers has been very positive, and we are currently reviewing this program to determine if it should be offered to the local school system for inclusion in its class curriculum.              

Smith & Nephew supports orthopaedic education with research, fellowship and CME grants through the Grants and Awards Program.  In addition, we fund general education through our Matching Gifts to Education Program.   This program provides a company match for gifts up to $350 per employee, per calendar year to qualifying institutions of higher learning.