Heart Friends Around the World

ORGANIZATION

The organization Heart Friends Around the World is a free association of people, mainly cardiologists and heart patients, which was founded in Italy in 1994 in order to promote the prevention and rehabilitation of cardiovascular disease in the world, above all in low- and medium-income countries.

In its activities the association has been supported by the Associazione Italiana Amici del Cuore, which has economically contributed to HFATW’s growth and development since the year 2000. This has been made possible also thanks to an international network of friendship and communication among different countries.

The association statute and its most important activities are described in our web site www.hfatw.org , among which a relationship of collaboration and friendship with Dr. Shanty Mendis, coordinator of Non Communicable Disease of WHO. At present this collaboration has been focused on a scholarship programme at Cecina hospital, in Italy, under the management of the current HFATW President, Dr Alessandro Scalzini, and sponsored by the local Associazione Amici del Cuore. Thanks to this programme, a number of cardiologists from developing countries have been able and will be able to learn methods of cardiovascular prevention and rehabilitation which will enable them to open cardiology-dedicated surgeries in their countries.

HFATW is an affiliated member of the World Heart Federation and is one of the active organizers of the World Day of the Heart in Italy. This year a brochure on the theme "Children, Teenagers and Heart" is being prepared for distribution in the elementary and secondary schools of the towns of Bergamo and Cecina.

Thanks to our international relationships we have been present with a stand, offered free of charge by the different organizers, at the World Congress of Cardiology in Berlin (1994), Rio de Janeiro (1998), Sidney (2002) and to the World Congress of Cardiological Rehabilitation in Buenos Aires (1996), Manila (2000) and Dublin (2004). In the latter congresses a number of speakers were member cardiologists of HFATW.

Since 1994 we have been organizing, with our cardiologists, an international updating congress, called Cardiology Update, which has been held every year in a different country. Until now they have taken place in Italy (Bergamo, Orvieto, Castiglioncello, Capri, Venezia), Poland, Slovakia, the Philippines, the Czech Republic, Cuba and Ireland.

We have also taken part as “invited speakers" in congresses in Germany, Spain, France, UK, Russia, Indonesia, Egypt, Pakistan, Iran, Peru, Chile, United States.

With the European Association of Cardiovascular Rehabilitation we have participated in the preparation of the Cardiovascular Rehabilitation Guidelines.

For years we published an information journal twice a year, with the goal of spreading our ideas and experience. A free copy was mailed of each issue to the approximately 1000 cardiologists in our mailing list, spread over more than 100 countries. With the advent of the Internet we interrupted the printed publication and, after creating an e.mailing list, we have started sending newsletter electronically to update all our members. Among them there are also Italian, German, Indian, Slovak, Iranian and Cuban patients, i.e. patients from countries where Heart Friends Around The World-Affiliated Chapters have been established. On 26th November 2004 the Andean Group of Heart Friends Around the World will be set up in Macaraibo Venezuela, which will involve cardiologists, doctors and patients from the different countries that are part of the Andes Cordillera (Venezuela, Perù, Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia).

Heart Friends Around the World’s mission is the promotion of Heart Health through the exchange of culture and friendship among the various countries which take part in our network with their cardiologists and patients. Yet, at the same time we have never underestimated the educational relevance that our association can have on the healthy population. In fact, we have published and distributed publications for health education, such as "The Heart Book," - a handbook about the cardiological rehabilitation of patients who underwent coronary by-pass surgery which was translated and published in six languages (Italian, English, Spanish, Russian, Iranian and Slovak) -, "Pinocchio and the Sore Troath", a booklet for the prevention of Rheumatic Fever and "The Cardiologist’s Sitting Room", 150 questions and answers to keep a healthy heart. In addition to this, various booklets of health information have been published in the course of time, such as "How to walk", "Women’s Heart", “Heart Attack and Heart Stroke", “Low-cholesterol Menus inspired to the Mediterranean Diet". The number of the copies printed is well over one million.