Since 2008, I have served as the Haiti program coordinator for Partners In Health (PIH), an organization dedicated to providing a preferential option for the poor in health care.  PIH serves some of the world’s poorest communities by providing comprehensive health care and other basic social and economic rights like education, clean water, decent housing, and dignified employment.

PIH believes in building local capacity wherever we are, and so the work in Haiti is directed and carried out by my Haitian colleagues—over 5,000 Haitian nurses, doctors, teachers, accountants, community health workers and water engineers serving a population of 1.4 million people in Haiti.  It is my work to serve the Haitian team and to make sure they have everything that they need to serve our patients:  resources, supplies, people, information…whatever it takes.

As our name would suggest, Partners In Health knows that we cannot do this work alone.  As Haiti program coordinator, it is my job to help partners from outside of Haiti connect to the work there, in a way that honors the vision and leadership of the Haitian team.  My role with PIH was scaled back this year so that I could complete my S.T.M. at Yale Divinity School/Berkeley Divinity School.  During this year, I have been accompanying PIH’s church partners, primarily from the Episcopal Diocese of Upper South Carolina. 

My role in helping to get Dr. Paul Farmer to lecture at YDS was very small.  I merely put Professor Diana Swancutt in touch with my colleagues on Paul’s team, and Diana took it from there.

Dr. Farmer and the entire PIH family have been incredibly supportive of my call to ordained ministry.  Dr. Farmer, Ophelia Dahl—another co-founder of PIH and its current Executive Director—and several other of my PIH colleagues attended my ordination to the transitional diaconate in the Episcopal Diocese of New York in March.