Suelen and her family: A Brazil child health success story

Ricardo, Ana Luiza, Suelen and Luis Ricardo in their newly renovated home in Nova Iguaçu, Brazil. Ana Luiza has a successful food truck and is going to law school but still doesn't feel middle class. Photo: David J. Olson

This was originally published on Global Health TV on October 31, 2017.

NOVA IGUAÇU, Rio de Janeiro State, Brazil — In 2012, Suelen hit rock bottom. She was living in extreme poverty with her husband and young son in a dilapidated house with a roof that was leaking water. While she was pregnant with her second child, her husband left her. When that child, Ana Luiza, was born, she was sick with pneumonia and asthma.

Suelen was at her wit’s end. Every day was a struggle. She made a living selling empanadas out of a canvas tent here in this city of 800,000 about 40 minutes from downtown Rio de Janeiro. “I was working all the time every day just to pay for food for the next day,” said Suelen. “I didn’t think about the future, just how I was going to eat tomorrow.”

Today, the situation of the family is the reverse of what it was five years ago. The health and wealth of the family is thriving. They have a highly successful food truck (that is expanding to home delivery). The children are going to good schools. And Suelen is going to law school so she can defend the rights of other black women who are being oppressed.

Three world-changers: Drones, sanitary pads and schools

This blog originally appeared on Humanosphere on April 20, 2015.

On the Pacific archipelago nation of Vanuatu, a “digital humanitarian” has been using drones to carry out a detailed assessment of the damage caused by Cyclone Pam last month.

In Rwanda, a young African woman is improving the lives of other young women by the simple act of providing them with locally made sanitary pads so they don’t miss work and school.

And in Kenya, a man who grew up in extreme poverty, without formal education, is building schools and fighting poverty and gender inequality in the worst slums of Nairobi. New York Times Columnist Nicholas Kristof says he might be the next Mandela.

All of these young people are trying to change the world in very different ways. Along with at least 50 others, they will be in Saxapahaw, North Carolina April 23-24 for the fourth annual SwitchPoint, a global gathering organized by IntraHealth International (which I need to disclose is one of my clients).

The top 10 global health stories of 2014

This was originally published by Global Health TV on Dec. 22, 2014.

Ebola, the biggest global health story of the year, is one that no one could have predicted when the year dawned almost 12 months ago. It did something that few global health stories do: It entered the consciousness of the global public in an important way. Beyond Ebola, though, there was much to celebrate in 2014.

Ebola: That one word represented not only the biggest global health story of the year, but one of the biggest stories of the year, of any type. As of Dec. 17, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported 18,603 cases and 6,915 deaths. Late in the year, incidence was declining in Liberia, slowing in Sierra Leone and “fluctuating” in Guinea. Sierra Leone surpassed Liberia as the country with the most reported cases. As I wrote here on Global Health TV last month, Ebola has made the definitive case for stronger health systems and health workers in developing countries.

In Brazil, a charity makes successful transition to social enterprise

A DKT Brazil promoter hands out samples of Prudence condoms in downtown São Paulo, Brazil on World AIDS Day. Photo: David J. Olson

This blog was originally published on Devex Impact on Nov. 28, 2014.

SÃO PAULO, Brazil — In its 24 years of existence, DKT Brazil has transformed itself from a charity entirely dependent on international donors to a social enterprise dependent only on its own business and marketing savvy.

Brazil has become one of the centers of the social enterprise world. In 2012, the Social Enterprise World Forum was held there. I’m reading more articles, like this one in the Guardian, which claims that social enterprise is becoming the norm, “a really valid option proposed for anyone wanting to start or grow a business in Brazil.”

When DKT Brazil was launched in 1990 as a condom social marketing organization, it considered itself a charity and received most of its funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development and other donors. But when it lost its USAID funding in 2003, it was forced to become financially sustainable.

It achieved 100% financial sustainability, and more. All of its Prudence condom products make money, yet many of them are within the contraceptive affordability index, which dictates that the cost of a year of contraception should not be more than 0.25% of a family’s disposable income. In fact, DKT’s cheapest condom is only 0.22%; even its most expensive brand does not reach 0.5%. DKT believes it prevented over 9,000 HIV infections in Brazil in 2013.

DKT Brazil believes it has lessons to offer other social enterprises in Brazil and elsewhere. DKT Brazil Country Manager Dan Marun offers three:

Global health needs more strange bedfellows, unorthodox partnerships

Puppets walking into the audience at the SwitchPoint conference in Saxapahaw, North Carolina.

The was originally published on the Huffington Post on July 14, 2014.

In Tanzania, the non-profit group IntraHealth International works with a cotton gin to provide circumcision services to their male employees and collaborates with local police to bring together 400 motorcycle taxi drivers to learn about road safety and HIV prevention. Both projects are funded by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The African Christian Health Associations Platform, based in Kenya, is working with Novo Nordisk and Johnson & Johnson that provide Christian health associations in several countries with technical support, training and drugs to combat diseases like diabetes, HIV and opportunistic infections.

Those are examples of an increasingly common approach to development. It used to be that a donor would sit down with the ministry of health to work out the design and implementation of a new global health initiative, with no significant input or involvement of other stakeholders. Those days, thankfully, are long gone.

Nowadays, it's widely recognized that more stakeholders need to be consulted, both in the design and the execution of an intervention. Does this make the process more messy and complicated? It sure does, but this messiness is essential to take global health to the next level.

Social enterprise for health, Brazilian style

With the leaders of Saúde Criança at their headquarters in Rio de Janeiro.

This was originally published on Global Health TV on April 27, 2014.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil — One is poised to become the condom market leader in Brazil, with 40 variants in its Prudence condom line. Its newest offering features the flavor and scent of caipirinha, the iconic Brazilian cocktail made from cachaça, lime and sugar. DKT believes it prevented over 9,000 HIV infections in 2013.

Another rescues the poorest and unhealthiest children from the urban slums of Rio de Janeiro, Sâo Paulo and other cities, and nurses them – and their families – back to health.  Since its creation, an estimated 50,000 people have benefitted from its work.

They are very different global health organizations, with very different operating models, but both call themselves social enterprises, Brazilian style, and both were created in 1991.

Movers, shakers, thinkers, doers converge on former N.C. mill town

This was originally published by the Huffington Post on April 9, 2014.

One is a British mobile phone guru who has become a storyteller of "reluctant innovators," propelling some of the most exciting social innovations outside the traditional development system.

Another is an architectural wunderkind from Togo in West Africa who leads a team that recycles old plastic bags into building materials.

And a third is a San Francisco Bay Area global health tech innovator who is building a web platform to help African countries make better decisions about HIV drug procurements. He speaks English, Punjabi, Spanish and Mongolian.

The three are very different but have at least two things in common: First, they are hellbent on changing the world. Second, they are converging on the tiny former mill town of Saxapahaw, North Carolina later this month to share their distinctive world views with hundreds of other global thinkers and doers.