The Cummings Foundation in Woburn, Massachusetts, has announced gifts totaling $52 million to Harvard Medical School (HMS) and the University of Global Health Equity (UGHE) in Rwanda to build on and amplify the work of the late Paul Farmer, co-founder of Partners in Health (PIH).

The foundation awarded a 10-year, $50 million gift that will be evenly divided between HMS and UGHE, which is an initiative of PIH, to establish a medical education collaborative focused on developing sustainable and equitable health systems in underserved populations. The collaboration has been named after Farmer, who died last February while teaching at UGHE, where he served as chancellor. He also served as chair of Harvard University’s Department of Global Health and Social Medicine.

Building on the existing partnership between HMS and UGHE, the collaboration will support initiatives including student and faculty exchanges, joint research projects, an annual global conference focused on health equity, and clinical training opportunities for medical students and residents, with an initial focus on building surgical capacity in low-resource settings. For example, the Paul Farmer Collaborative aims to strengthen the efforts of the HMS Program in Global Surgery and Social Change and the UGHE Center for Equity in Global Surgery, which was established to serve a vehicle for global surgery solutions developed in Africa through research, education, advocacy, and training. The gift also will establish an endowed professorship in global health equity at HMS to be named after the foundation.

In addition, the foundation contributed $2 million to UGHE toward construction of residential housing on the school’s campus in rural Butaro, Rwanda, including 10 apartments for visiting faculty and a lounge to facilitate connections between full-time faculty. A longtime supporter of UGHE, the foundation has previously awarded it more than $27.5 million.

“This gift will allow us to continue Paul’s transformative work and honor his vision to reshape healthcare delivery for marginalized populations and to connect HMS with the UGHE,” said Harvard Medical School dean George Q. Daley. “This gift is a powerful reminder that as a global community, we are only as strong as the most vulnerable among us, which Paul understood better than anyone.”

(Photo credit: Cummings Foundation)