The Assuit Burns Project (ABP) is a small Egyptian NGO working to help burns victims. The author describes the work of the Project, setting out its various capacities, and criticises funders' and donors' over-emphasis on preventative medicine at the expense of this type of curative work. Burns victims can become economic and social outcasts, and this impacts on development, and equity (particularly gender equity). This article also appears in the Development in Practice Reader Development and Management.