The NIH Research Project Grant Program (R01) would be an excellent fit for the sickle cell anemia project due to the qualifications for the grant. As stated on the NIH website, the grant must go towards a project working on a very specific topic and the people working on it should be qualified and interested in the project and the possible outcomes. Furthermore, this grant is meant to help projects based in health and our project has the potential to help millions of lives all across the world. Similarly, the USAID development innovation ventures grant (DIV) is also a very viable option for our project. The goal of the DIV grant is to help fund projects that are looking to solve development issues through creative solutions at a cost that is a fraction of the current options. This fits the mold of our sickle cell project as we aim to give people a way to screen for sickle cell in places where there are essentially no viable ways to do so at the current moment.

UNICEF would be a viable option for our sickle cell test strip project as we reach the dissemination stage of the project. We cannot expect people to pay for the use of our device and we would need a group to subsidize the majority of the cost for the test strips.

In order for our product to be successfully distributed we will mainly need partners who will help with the dissemination of the project. Some of these groups include the ministry of health, UKAID, UNICEF, and the Sickle Cell Disease Coalition. All of these groups could facilitate in the distribution of the test strips or the payment for the test strips. People should not be charged to use our test strips. NGO’s and other organizations must work to cover some of the cost of the test strips in hopes of saving the most live possible. Without having these partnerships, we would be charging hospitals a large amount of money to buy our test strips. This is an issue because many hospitals and health care organizations within Sierra Leone  do not have enough money to pay for these test strips which make our partnerships with NGO’s even more important.

Furthermore, partnering with WHO or another large organization to establish training for the test strips would be crucial to the implementation of our strips into the health care systems in many parts of the world. The WHO could help develop a training system for nurses and doctors so they are properly trained in our test strip procedure. Having a partnership with the WHO or similar organizations could allow to the development of distribution channels which may be difficult to establish as many people are isolated throughout very rural areas of the world which can barely be reached by vehicle.

Moreover, having a partnership with the company that will be producing out test strips would also be a necessity as we would need a strong relationship with the company that would be handling the production of the strips to ensure the best quality production of our products.