Friendships are finally getting their due. Once relegated to a distant third position after life partners and children, a spate of new books are spotlighting the importance of friends. And research shows that people with close friends are healthier – both emotionally...
Purpose Prize
The Latest from CoGenerate
An Intergenerational Approach to Getting Families Housed in Santa Barbara
Lyiam Galo is the co-director of Generations United for Service, a program of the Northern Santa Barbara County United Way and one of 10 awardees of the CoGen Challenge to Advance Economic Opportunity. Watch for interviews with all 10 of these innovators bringing...
Utilizing Faith-Owned Land to Strengthen Intergenerational Community in Seattle
E.N. West is the co-founder and lead organizer of the Faith Land Initiative of the Church Council of Greater Seattle, one of 10 awardees of the CoGen Challenge to Advance Economic Opportunity. Watch for interviews with all 10 of these innovators bringing older and...
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Ro (Rosalie) Wyman
Purpose Prize Fellow 2008
Creating trust and teamwork to improve health care in rural Rwanda
During a career in finance and banking, Rosalie (Ro) Smith Wyman first visited Rwanda in 1988 and was captivated by the mountain gorillas and the Rwandan people. She wanted to help the country’s health care system recover from the ravages of the 1993-97 genocide, but was unable to persuade the Dartmouth Medical School, where she was an overseer, to help. So she set up the Wyman Worldwide Health Partners to do it herself. Wyman saw that the genocide had left Rwandans reluctant to trust one another or to work as teams or risk innovation. In 2006, at age 58, her organization launched the Comprehensive Community Health Initiatives and Programs (CCHIPS) to overhaul a poor and ill-equipped mountain health center as a government pilot project. Using team-building exercises and involving the community, the program brought in basic equipment, power, water and management procedures to improve clinic care. Once among the country’s worst clinics, the pilot facility is now among its best, and a second project has begun. With a soap-making business, hygiene classes and new water reclamation/septic tanks, clinic births and income have risen and the clinic is approaching sustainability. “Each and every one of us does make a difference every day in many small ways. It just takes one small step at a time or planting that seed of an idea that sets the chain reaction in motion.”