‘We called ourselves the lifeboat crew’: how fired USAID workers launched a rescue project ‘to save as many babies as we can’

Project Resource Optimization is continuing to fund the mobile clinics of the Alliance for International Medical Action (Alima) to provide maternity services and vital childhood vaccines. Photograph: Alima

They call themselves the “lifeboat crew”. After losing their jobs abruptly when the Trump administration slashed US overseas aid earlier this year, a group of dedicated workers decided to launch their own rescue package.

Refusing to “wallow in misery”, Rob Rosenbaum, a former USAID economist, and a group of like-minded former agency staff began efforts to save some of the vital programmes that faced closure after the cuts.