History 

How Marie Stopes International began

Founded in 1976, Marie Stopes International grew out of the organisation originally set up by Marie Stopes in 1921. The modern organisation was co-founded by Dr Tim Black, CBE & his wife Jean whose vision was to provide accessible family planning services globally.

On returning to the UK from working in Africa and Papua New Guinea, Dr Black took over the ailing Marie Stopes Clinic in Central London. Within a year more clinics were opened and these were such a success that shortly afterwards the organisation began working with Partners overseas and the first clinics outside the UK were opened in Ireland and India. These were closely followed by clinics in Sri Lanka and Kenya.

The organisation today

Over the past 30 years or so many more Partner programmes have been established and today the Marie Stopes International global partnership now spans:

• 38 countries
• 452 static clinics, thousands of outreach sites and mobile services, along with numerous social marketing and social franchising operations
• 5,000 team members

The Marie Stopes International global partnership has Support Offices in London and Melbourne, an advocacy office in Brussels and a fundraising office in the USA.