• How C2C launches a new clinic site

    How C2C launches a new clinic site


    Dear Friends,

    As we begin the work on rehabilitating the clinic site in Roche Plate, we wanted to give you a behind-the-scene look into C2C’s process for opening a new clinic! 


    Step 1- Agreement with the Ministry of Health:

    During the first stage in the process of opening a new clinic, members of our Haiti leadership team meet with the Departmental Director of Health to review the list of clinics that the ministry would like us to take on. Our team visits each clinic and meets with the staff to get a sense of what the partnership will look like for C2C, the existing clinic staff, and the community.

    Step 2- Market Research & Analysis:

    A key component of C2C’s process for choosing which clinic to renovate is to first review the Ministry reports of potential clinics we can improve through our Public-Private Partnership. Then, we compile and analyze data about the clinics and the communities they serve. After lengthy internal discussions, C2C works closely with the Ministry to weigh the pros and cons of each clinic site, taking into account the Ministry’s priorities, needs of the catchment area of the site, and renovation costs. We also make sure to survey the economic conditions of the communities in order to set our service rates fairly and to consider the needs of the community. Once this process is over, we make the final decision about which clinic to rehabilitate.

    Step 3- Clinic Site Renovations:

    This is the stage where the clinic transformation truly begins. Our Haiti team gets bids from local contractors for the renovation project. Once we choose the contractor, the physical renovation begins to take place: we ensure that the building is structurally safe and meets the needs of our clinic services; the waiting area is welcoming; and that the entire facility provides patients with a high-quality experience that they will feel comfortable returning to for all of their primary care needs.

    Step 4- Staff Training:

    At C2C, we want to make sure our staff is able to provide the high-quality care people have come to expect from us. We integrate the core value of “bon acceuil” into our visual brand by adopting a tagline: Sante’w se Priyorite’n (Your Health is Our Priority). We make sure to weave this tagline by infusing every client interaction with our clinics, which starts with our friendly staff. We also train all staff members on our electronic medical records system to support our mission in providing efficient, high-quality care.

    Step 5- Community Relations:

    Community Relations

    We believe it is of utmost importance to build trust between C2C and the community that we aim to serve, and we do this through community building. We meet with local political leaders, elders, local priests, directors of schools, and many personalities that play a big role in their community to build our working partnership. While community members may have visited the clinic before as a public dispensary, we aim to improve upon their past experiences by providing high-quality primary care services that are also affordable and convenient, along with our accessible services such as our on-site pharmacy and laboratory. Also, through our community health program, our agents educate community members on the importance of primary care and how C2C works to respond to their needs.

    Step 6- Grand Opening:

    Once our clinic is fully renovated, our staff is trained, and the community is familiar with our services, we add the finishing touches such as ensuring that our pharmacy is fully-stocked and that we have all of the necessary supplies and equipment. On opening day, we have a welcome ceremony to celebrate our new clinic as well as our new partnership with the community!


    In collaboration with the Ministry of Health, C2C’s next clinic will be our first in the Northeast Department. This is an exciting time for our organization, as we prove how our model can scale across Haiti and beyond. The clinic, located in Roche Plate, is projected to open this fall. Stay tuned for more updates!

    Allison Howard-Berry

  • C2C EXPANDS ITS CLINIC NETWORK TO A NEW DEPARTMENT IN HAITI

    C2C EXPANDS ITS CLINIC NETWORK TO A NEW DEPARTMENT IN HAITI
    The newest C2C clinic site in the Northeast Department of Haiti
    The newest C2C clinic site in the Northeast Department of Haiti

    Dear Friends,

    As many of you may know, protests against government corruption, civil unrest, and fuel shortages have threatened stability in Haiti for the last several months. However, C2C’s clinics remain open and our staff is continuing to work uninterrupted, delivering high-quality care to our patients during this time of adversity.

    We are even moving forward with opening a new clinic in a brand new department in Haiti! We recently finalized our partnership with the Northeast Department and will be working with the Ministry of Health to renovate the newest C2C clinic in the community of Roche Plate. We are grateful to our staff who continue to work diligently despite the obstacles.

    As we begin the work on rehabilitating the clinic site in Roche Plate, we wanted to give you a behind-the-scenes look into C2C’s process for opening a new clinic. Stay tuned as Dr. Samuel Bernard, C2C’s Chief Operating Officer, guides us through this process next on the blog!

    Racha Yehia

  • World Immunization Week & Unite for Sight Conference

    World Immunization Week & Unite for Sight Conference

    This week at C2C, we celebrated World Immunization Week. Our community health workers work hard to immunize infants in the communities they live in and serve to keep children healthy and thriving.

    Photo credit to Unite for Sight
         Photo credit to Unite for Sight

     

    Just recently, I had the pleasure of attending the annual Unite for Sight Global Health and Innovation conference at Yale University in New Haven, NY. Every year, the conference brings together the world’s most interesting global health professionals, innovators, and students to discuss new and innovative policies, practices technologies, and models of care. The conference highlighted topics ranging from leadership in NGOs to maternal and child health practices and many in between.

     

    Photo credit to Unite for Sight
          Photo credit: Unite for Sight

    One of the talks I attended was presented by the energetic Agnes Binagwaho, former Minister of Health of Rwanda and current Vice Chancellor of the University of Global Health Equity in Rwanda. She talked about the moral obligation of optimism to continue the fight to reach to the sustainable development goals in 2030. She presented the Rwanda Universal Health Care model that has led to many success stories, for a country that was not long ago completely decimated by a genocide and political crisis. In particular, she spoke to the importance of having healthcare reach all families and households with the help of trained and paid community health workers. Rwanda has a network of over 50 000 Community Health Workers (CHWs) that have the ability to provide primary care and referrals.

     

    C2C has dedicated team of community health staff at each clinic to help us in our efforts to provide quality health services to the community. By reaching families in the community and at home, they act as an extension of our clinical services to remind patients of their follow-up appointments, immunization schedules, or family-planning services. They also conduct home visits for families with children suffering from anemia and acute respiratory infections, and help them to learn more about these conditions and the importance of the treatment. They also do many outreach activities for hypertension respiratory infections and malnutrition, hoping to reach people that would not have otherwise visited the clinics and provide them with care that has the potential to prevent major complications. CHWs are an integral part of C2C’s ability to offer high quality services in and outside of the clinic. They are especially key to optimal infant immunization coverage.

     

    This was my second time attending the Global Health and Innovation conference. The opportunity to meet with other global health and international development professionals with a passion for providing opportunities and improving the health of disadvantaged people worldwide brings me inspiration and affirms that C2C’s commitment to bring low-cost quality health care to Haiti is on the right track.

     

    Racha Yehia

  • OUR 2018 ANNUAL REPORT IS HERE!

    OUR 2018 ANNUAL REPORT IS HERE!

     

    Dear Friends,

    We are thrilled to share with you our 2018 successes in our digital Annual Report below!

     

    This year our new partnership with Haiti’s Ministry of Health, our expanding clinic network, and the growing scope of our services to poor and low-income communities in Haiti has doubled our reach!

    The year ahead is ambitious: we will double the size of our service delivery footprint in Haiti and we are expanding our clinic network to a new department to ensure that our services are available to vulnerable communities in other regions of Haiti!

    Your support and interest in our work to build a sustainable health system in Haiti has been so important. We’re so grateful to have you in our community and I look forward to sharing news about our expansion in the year ahead.

    Racha Yehia

  • One Word: Haiti

    One Word: Haiti


    C2C staff providing high-quality care closer to home

    Look Again: Social Business in Haiti

    By: Elizabeth Sheehan

    When funders gather, they talk about bold and game-changing ideas. That’s what makes funding communities such exciting spaces: like-minded people coming together with shared goals, the financial capacity to make an impact, and a burning desire to see change happen. The best communities are tenacious and think big. As a philanthropist myself, I’ve gained wisdom, grounding, and inspiration from these groups.

    But, in recent years, I’ve wondered: Are we intimidated by the thorniest challenges? Are we bandwagon-ing too much? I know what the term “donor darling” says about an organization, but what does it say about us?

    For over two decades, I’ve been a member of the Threshold Foundation, a group of philanthropists who pool resources, passions, and expertise to engage in transformative grant-making. Threshold was a precursor to the collaborative philanthropy models that are exploding today and it’s gratifying to see those small, early efforts translated into a large-scale movement. In more recent years, I’ve become a member of Women Moving Millions and a founding community member of Co-Impact and I’m thrilled to see collaboration expected of grantors as much as it is of grantees.

    But despite the philanthropic renaissance and re-thinking we are seeing in the world today, I’m continuously dismayed by the reaction I get with one provocative word:

    Haiti.

    I’ve been funding in Haiti since 2009 and – without a doubt – there are endless lessons and learning that come from a decade of close engagement with Haiti as the nation has struggled to find a path towards health and economic prosperity. I started out making traditional philanthropic gifts to the areas that are personal priorities for me, namely, the health of women and girls. But I quickly pivoted my focus to social business models because, like so many, I saw the pitfalls of traditional aid which – compounded by the influx of earthquake relief money – struggled to deliver real outcomes for people.

    In more robust emerging markets, like East Africa, India, and South America, social enterprises are transforming how we think about social impact and how philanthropy can be harnessed to achieve sustainable aims. Big money is pouring into market-based approaches. But in Haiti? Support for social business is anemic.

    I’ve had one too many funders tell me that they “just don’t think {insert idea} can work in Haiti”. Largely, these impressions are not based on any facts, experience, economic data, or knowledge of consumer behavior in Haiti.

    On the eve of the Skoll World Forum, I am challenging funders and impact investors: look again.

    You aren’t going to find easy answers in Haiti. The economy isn’t going to function like the emerging markets that feel safer and more familiar. But the possibility and potential that is burgeoning in Haiti deserves your attention. Social enterprise models are showing results that should make you question the prevailing wisdom that free public services – across the board – are the only future for Haiti. Setting aside the fact that that approach is logistically impracticable, who would pay for that in the years and decades ahead?

    Take a look at SOIL’s EkoLakay toilet model that provides an affordable household sanitation solution while employing a cadre of micro-entrepreneurs (bonus: it’s great for the environment). Take a look at how D’Lo Haiti leverages technology and a last-mile distribution model to ensure affordable clean water to tens of thousands. Take a look at C2C’s public-private partnership with the Ministry of Health to get every public clinic in northern Haiti delivering high-quality care at price-points that are lower than current public-sector pricing.

    These social business models are leveraging every dollar in new, catalytic ways and – crucially – they’re showing us what the future could look like, where the private and public sectors meaningfully collaborate, and the financial models are dynamic and don’t rely on a one-way flow of funding from the US.

    The time is long overdue to look again at Haiti. Join me. Let’s talk.

    Racha Yehia

  • Social Entrepreneurship is on the rise in Haiti

    Although the concept of a social enterprise is still fairly new in Haiti, we have seen the rise of market-based solutions take root, nurtured by organizations like Yunus Social Business, to demonstrate that an aid culture of free and subsidized goods and services may not be the most favorable strategy for building long-term economic growth and vitality in the country.

    At C2C, we agree that this type of market-based solution is often more sustainable than traditional aid. Regardless of the number of existing barriers to success, we believe that a social enterprise approach in Haiti can work (specifically in health services) and that the challenges inherent in the market are surmountable.

    James Ellsmoor recently profiled ten Haitian entrepreneurs who are taking the country’s narrative into their own hands by “creating opportunity in this Caribbean island nation to uplift Haiti’s environmental, economic and social landscape.” Learn more about who these are and what they’re doing to invest their talents into rebuilding their home country:

     

     

     

    Racha Yehia

  • A letter from Executive Director Scott Schroeder


    Dear Friends of C2C,

    It’s been a whirlwind of a first month as Executive Director at C2C. I participated in my first Board meeting, represented C2C at a global conference in Mexico and, most importantly, visited our staff and clinics in Haiti for the first time.

    Prior to joining C2C, I was attracted by the extremely positive “ingredients” the organization had – visionary founders and passionate Board members committed to taking on one of the planet’s biggest challenges (access to quality primary healthcare, particularly in the developing world), a social enterprise-based earned revenue model that ensures long-term sustainability, a partnership with the Haitian Ministry of Health that opens a path to significant scale, and a passionate and committed Haitian staff in our offices and clinics. These last ingredients I knew about “outside looking in” before I joined but, as is so often the case, what a completely different experience it was being there!

    Sure, there were some challenges that come to life in a whole new way when you are in-country such as: very difficult roads that can quickly become impassable with anything more than a brief tropical shower; generators that break; solar panels installed in the shade; more patients than doctors and nurses to serve them at times. But, our incredible team on the ground takes these challenges (and many more) head-on every day and they deliver! The new clinics we have opened in our partnership with the Ministry of Health have seen morale and quality measures double since C2C’s involvement. Our doctors and nurses are happier, patients are getting a far higher quality of service and are saying so in surveys, and our revenue model establishes over 80% ongoing expense recovery within just a few months of operations. It’s a very exciting picture that has enormous potential for expansion in the coming year and beyond.

    My goal is to take the C2C footprint from 5 to 15 clinics by 2020. I also believe that our model (and our expertise) can be applied in many other developing countries down the road. The challenges will be many and it certainly won’t be easy, but in just one month, I am even more convinced that C2C can deliver high quality primary healthcare in a sustainable way throughout Haiti and (ultimately) the globe. I’m excited to get to work and tackle the challenges I mentioned so that C2C can achieve the potential of the wonderful ingredients we have assembled.

    Most importantly, and finally, we could not have reached this point of amazing potential without the support of all of you.  You all should feel great about what you have enabled and the potential that lies before us – thank you so much and onward!

    With best regards,
    Scott Schroeder
    Executive Director

     

    Racha Yehia

  • Introducing C2C’s new Executive Director!

    Dear Friends and Supporters,

    We are kicking off the fall season with some exciting news. On behalf of the team and board at C2C, I am delighted to announce that a new Executive Director, Scott Schroeder, will lead C2C into a new era of growth.

    Scott is a development and management professional with broad experience spanning NGO leadership, small business development, marketing and strategy. He began his career in the financial services industry before transitioning into the nonprofit sector. He was the Chief Marketing Officer at Plan International, where he led the organization to raise over $30 million in revenue. He also led new campaigns and developed new development products aimed at issues facing women and girls (Because I am a Girl). After leaving Plan, he served as the Vice President of External Relations at Pathfinder International, where he was responsible for fundraising, partnership development, public relations and communications. Most recently, he served as the Chief Development Officer at the Maven Project, a start-up telemedicine non-profit that matches specialist volunteer physicians with underserved clinics.

    Scott brings his experience in global development and business to leads the strategic growth of C2C and optimization of its social business model. He is dedicated to setting a clear and bold vision for C2C’s future.

    As we welcome Scott, we also would like to express our utmost gratitude to Allison Howard-Berry. Allison played a critical role in designing and executing the C2C model. She and I worked side by side for over a decade and has served as the Executive Director for the past two years.

    Through her leadership and dedication to the organization, she helped to transform C2C from its infancy into the social business it is today. Her vision of leadership for developing our community-based clinic network formed the foundation that shapes the C2C’s mission and values. All of us at C2C are eternally grateful for the opportunity to have worked with Allison and are privileged to be able to carry on the efforts she helped start. We are happy to announce that Allison will continue on with C2C as Strategic Partnerships Advisor to the Board of Directors.

    Many of you have been great friends and supporters over the last decade. Please know that we deeply appreciate your support, encouragement, and investment in making this transition such a positive one. I hope you’ll join me in giving Scott a warm welcome. As always, we welcome any questions you might have and please stay in touch with us about the exciting work we will be kicking off under Scott’s leadership!

    Sincerely,
    Elizabeth Sheehan 
    Founder and President

     

     

    Racha Yehia

  • C2C clinics receive high scores for quality by the Haitian Ministry of Health

    A study published last year in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization found that while 91% of Haitians lived within 5 kilometers of a health facility, only 23% lived within 5 kilometers of a high-quality health facility.  

    Low quality clinics and hospitals across Haiti are contributing to the poor health status of millions of vulnerable people. At C2C, we’re changing that by transforming public clinics into thriving, well-resourced, high-quality health centers.

    Here are our results from the 2018 evaluation by the Haitian Ministry of Health:

    Racha Yehia

  • C2C Overhauls Community Health Program

    Dr. Samuel Bernard leads a training session with the new cadre of C2C Community Health Workers

    Dear Friends,

    As you know, we opened our fourth clinic last month as part of our formal collaboration with the Haitian Ministry of Health to create a public-private partnership (PPP) to rehabilitate existing public clinics to achieve high benchmarks of service delivery and quality.

    We know that rehabilitating clinic buildings and ensuring that doors are open to patients each day doesn’t necessarily improve the health of a community. Poor families need support to be able to consistently access care and to be empowered with the health education they need to make healthy choices. That’s why we pair our clinical services with community health programming: services that complement clinic-based care with community-based screenings, home visits, and education opportunities.

    Earlier this year, we overhauled the scope of our existing community health programming by hiring a new cadre of 8 Community Health Workers (CHWs) devoted solely to home-based follow-up to the clinic experience. CHWs can close a critical gap in the continuum of care, helping to ensure measurable clinical improvements for patients. It’s an exciting evolution for our organization and we want to be able to offer this level of accountability to our key stakeholders: our patients.

     

    The New Community Health Initiative:

    Program Highlights:

    • Each C2C clinic is now staffed with two clinical personnel devoted solely on home-based and community-based care and follow-up: one Community Health Nurse and one Community Health Agent.
    • CHWs conduct home visits, provide education at churches and schools, and convene free health screenings each week to educate community members about the most common threats to health: unclean food and water, poor hygiene, chronic conditions, nutrition, the importance of childhood immunizations, and sexual health.
    • This initiative targets some of the most common illnesses we treat in our clinics: acute respiratory infections, anemia, typhoid, and hypertension.
    • CHWs are assigned to follow-up at the household level for every patient diagnosed with these illnesses to ensure that the continuum of care is complete and that our patients are not just receiving services, but that they are getting well.
    • CHWs will bring with them the necessary medication or follow-up diagnostics or monitoring tools to the patient’s home, such as tablets, blood pressure cuffs and pneumonia monitors to assess and record the health profile of a patient at home or in the community.

     

    CHWs are a vital link between clinic and patient. This level of service delivery is unprecedented in Haiti and we believe that we can demonstrate significant gains against baseline data, proving that the CHW model for follow-up care is measuring improved health outcomes.

     

    Racha Yehia