CHICAGO, IL (September 21, 2012) – Candidates are being sought for the position as director of the Paul Carlson Partnership (PCP), replacing current Executive Director Byron Miller who is retiring after four years of service.

The successful candidate will assume the leadership responsibilities on December 1. A position description has been posted online, with applications to be received no later than October 5. Click here to view a PDF version of the position description. Applications can be emailed to the PCP office.

The Paul Carlson Partnership focuses its efforts on combating poverty and disease in the northwestern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The ministry partnership supports five hospitals and 94 clinics serving a population of 600,000 people.

Farmers to Markets (FTM), the ministry’s major microfinance project in partnership with USAID, is helping 2,500 subsistence farmers – over half of them women – to earn cash from their crops. In the process of creating new market opportunities, FTM also is influencing changes in the ways that Congolese husbands and wives share work and decision-making responsibilities.

The organization was founded as the Paul Carlson Foundation in 1966, honoring the life of Evangelical Covenant Church medical missionary Dr. Paul E. Carlson who was killed in the 1964 rebellion. The Congolese government donated an empty hospital in the village of Loko, and initial work of the PCP and Congo Covenant Church focused on establishing and developing that site.

Leaders began doing agricultural development programs as well while the medical work expanded to village clinics. The PCP provides operational support and pharmaceuticals to the system, which are supplemented by donated equipment, supplies and the work of volunteers.

A three-year grant of approximately $650,000 from USAID has made the Farmers to Markets microfinance program possible. The project assists groups of subsistence farmers to grow more crops, and helps bicycle entrepreneurs and experienced wholesalers to purchase from the farmers and sell in Kinshasa and other cities, where the markets are stronger and prices are better. Including family members, about 12,000 people are now finding their lives changed through this program.