ONG Bethesda is a community organization with three branches: health, community development, and savings and credit.
ONG Bethesda’s ministries bloomed out of the despair of failing social and political institutions in the late 1980s. French and North American Mennonite workers have been involved from the beginning with the clinic, the neighborhood sanitation program and the job creation efforts. Mennonite interns have provided significant assistance in carrying out feasibility studies, translation work and multiple other assignments. ONG Bethesda offers chaplaincy services and counseling for patients, as well as an outreach to people with HIV/AIDS. The community health department helps to train members of local African Initiated Churches and other churches to provide basic health teaching at the congregational level. These health workers can lead workshops or conduct seminars on a variety of health-related topics incorporating a biblical and spiritual perspective into the health teaching. The Mission Network provides funding to the training program.
The Bethesda health center began in 1990 in partnership with Mennonite Board of Missions, predecessor agency to Mennonite Mission Network. The neighborhood sanitation program and the job creation program grew out of a holistic vision for ministry in an underserved population within Cotonou. The health teaching program began in 1998 and evolved into the community health department. ONG Bethesda has become recognized worldwide as an agency for creative innovation in community health and development. At the present, Mission Network involvement is primarily with the health training program.
