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:

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

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

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:

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.

Reflections on Opening the Sinek Clinic & the start of a Public-Private Partnership

One month after the grand opening of the Sinek clinic and, though its impact isn’t fully defined yet, we can clearly see that the community is happy to see its doors open. We began to experience a daily high volume of patients right on opening day. Sinek, the 4th clinic in C2C’s growing network of community clinics, is surrounded by a population of nearly 20,000 people. Prior to its re-opening, the community lacked access to reliable, high-quality medical services.

We recently sat down with C2C’s Chief Operating Officer, Dr. Samuel Bernard, to reflect on the journey of re-opening the Sinek clinic, its success in such a short period of time, and to discuss C2C’s model evolution towards a Public-Private Partnership (PPP). Dr. Samuel told us that he was very excited about C2C’s partnership with Haiti’s Ministry of Health (MSPP) and, in particular, the renovation of failing public clinics. This partnership gives us the ability to breathe “new life” into these existing clinics. Dr. Jasmin, the Director of the Northern Department at the Haitian Ministry of Health, was just as thrilled as we were to embark on this mutually-beneficial journey.

Dr. Bernard shares his reflections about embarking on the PPP journey that begins with the grand opening of Sinek:

Addressing Concerns:

We knew Sinek was the right place to start, considering the clinic wasn’t functional: patients never saw a doctor- only a nurse assistant and did not have any meds, exams, or lab tests to offer. At the same time, we knew we had to tackle a mountain of challenges before opening day. Despite the best efforts of the government to staff and equip a public clinic in Sinek, there simply was not enough public funding to pay salaries, secure the supply chain, or provide electricity or running water.

In order to tackle the internal issues and operations of the clinic, we had to address the many external challenges, such as:

Sourcing construction materials that weren’t available in Haiti
Assessing the community and understanding what types of services they need
Educating the community about C2C’s model and how it differs from the public clinics

Grand Opening:

Community members were excited and happy to see the changes to the clinic.
The Ministry of Health was glad to see that the clinic was supporting the community and that we wanted to include their input throughout the re-opening process. We had an overwhelming amount of feedback stressing that this is the only clinic that the community has and that they so are glad that they can depend on it to stay open and functional. The renovations to the clinic (from the inside and out) showed that our partnership with the government was headed in the right direction and it gave people hope that the Public-Private Partnership was indeed a winning model.

C2C Model Evolution:

Since the early years in Haiti, C2C developed methods for community-based market research, established key partnerships, built a local brand, and iterated core operating protocols (staffing, task-shifting, electronic medical records, quality standards). We believe that our model, having demonstrated both health impact and business traction, is ready for replication to new communities.

C2C is growing its network in northern Haiti. We now operate 4 clinics with plans to open another 6 clinics in the next two years, reaching 50,000 people annually by 2020. We have always worked in close collaboration with the Haitian Ministry of Health, offering national priority programs like immunizations and antenatal care free-of-charge. Starting with Sinek, we have begun to formally expand our collaboration with the Ministry to a public-private partnership (PPP) model, rehabilitating existing public clinics to achieve high benchmarks of service delivery and quality, by adopting the C2C model for clinic management.

Sinek patients have welcomed C2C with open arms and are happy that the clinic is clean, safe, professional, and trustworthy. This successful start to the partnership gives Haiti’s government hope that replication in other communities is possible and on a path to transforming healthcare in Haiti.

Clinic Launch Series: Part 1 of 5- Transforming the Pharmacy

Dear Friends,

Last week, we announced that C2C will officially open the doors of a new clinic in Sinek, northern Haiti, next month. This will be the 4th clinic in our growing network of community clinics. The community of nearly 20,000 lacks access to reliable, high-quality medical services. Despite the best efforts of the government to staff and equip a public clinic in Sinek, there simply isn’t enough public funding to pay salaries, secure the supply chain, or provide electricity or running water. C2C is proud to partner with the Haitian government to give the Sinek clinic a “new life” and to serve the community in perpetuity.

Step One: Guarantee a reliable supply chain for essential medicines.

Under government management, the Sinek clinic is able to stock only 6 to 8 different medicines and regularly experiences stock-outs because of failures up the supply chain. Under C2C’s model, the Sinek clinic will stock over 35 medicines. Reliability is a fundamental brand attribute of C2C clinics: we promise our patients that the medicine they need will always be in stock. We’ve developed an inventory and supply chain system that leverages efficiencies across the clinic network.

See our “before and after” photos below! The transformation of the Sinek pharmacy is well underway and we cannot wait to welcome our first patients to the revitalized public clinic in April.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Stay tuned as we bring you more information next week about how the clinic is transforming. But first, a CALL TO ACTION! We would appreciate if you could take just a moment to do the following:

Follow us on social media:
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Forward this email to a friend and ask them to follow C2C!

We want to build our community of supporters and advocates far and wide so that the community of Sinek and the new clinic know that we are following their success!

Clinic Launch Series: Part 5 of 5- Grand Opening of the New Clinic!

Dear Friends,

After several months of planning and hard work, we are excited to announce that the newly renovated C2C Sinek clinic is finally open to the public! The opening of this clinic marks an important milestone in Haiti’s healthcare sector.

While this is the 4th clinic in C2C’s growing network, it is the first clinic re-opening project as part of a new public-private partnership (PPP) strategy to rehabilitate underperforming government clinics across the country. This innovative partnership with Haiti’s government allows C2C to identify flagging public clinics and give them a “new life” of operational excellence and health impact.

Step Five: Strengthen the relationship between the clinic and Sinek community to effectively address and meet community needs

Dr. Jasmin addressing the community members and staff at new Sinek clinic grand opening

In an effort to ensure a smooth transition at Sinek, we invited the community to attend the grand opening ceremony last week. Many community members were in attendance, as well as local government leaders and the Director of the Northern Department at the Haitian Ministry of Health, Dr. Ernst-Robert Jasmin. All attendees got the opportunity to take a tour of the clinic and learn about its new and wide-ranging services. In his opening remarks, Dr. Jasmin said:

“When the Ministry of Health embarked on this partnership with C2C, I was happy to learn that the Sinek clinic would get a second chance to serve the community here. Prior to the transformation, the pharmacy did not carry many medications and the lab didn’t have electricity or equipment. I am so pleased to see not only the physical transformation of the clinic but that this partnership gives hope to other clinics that are also struggling. This is something that can be replicated not only in the northern part of the country, but throughout Haiti.”

We began the journey to transform the Sinek clinic by leveraging the assets the Ministry of Health already had in place. While a clinic building already stood at the site, its infrastructure was in very poor condition. As construction got underway to ensure a proper foundation, we also trained newly-hired and current staff members to standardize clinic operations and to integrate electronic medical records at Sinek.

The “before” and “after” photos (below) illustrate the transformation process of the Sinek clinic:

Clinic Renovation

BEFORE: Despite the best efforts of the government to staff and equip the clinic,
there simply isn’t enough public funding to pay salaries, secure the supply chain,
or provide electricity or running water.
AFTER: As C2C took over this flagging public clinic, we mitigated structural and
many other physical issues to the existing site. The renovation process has already
given the clinic a “new life”.

Patient Waiting Area

BEFORE: Sinek is a rural community with a population living below Haiti’s poverty
line (less than $2/day). They lack access to basic goods and services, like clean
water and reliable healthcare.
AFTER: By renovating the clinic, such as the patient waiting area, we are working
hard to ensure that this new and improved Sinek clinic will be a hub for local
families and meet their health needs.

Pharmacy

BEFORE: Under government management, the clinic regularly
experienced stock-outs because of failures up the supply chain.
AFTER: Under C2C’s model, we guarantee a reliable supply chain to
ensure that the pharmacy is always fully-stocked with essential meds.

Laboratory

BEFORE AFTER

Consultation Room

BEFORE AFTER

Stay tuned as we bring you more news about the clinic and patient stories in the coming months. But first, we need your help in getting the word out about our first PPP clinic opening! if you could take just a moment to do the following:

Follow us on social media: Facebook ,Twitter, LinkedIn
Forward this email to a friend or family member & ask them to follow C2C!

We want to build our community of supporters and advocates far and wide so that the community of Sinek and the new clinic know that we are following their success!

April is Conference month: Skoll World Forum, Innovations in Healthcare, and Global Health & Innovation

April was a busy month for C2C! With preparations underway to open the newest clinic in our network, it was all hands on deck. At the same time, C2C staff was thrilled to participate in the following conferences last month:

Skoll World Forum:
Elizabeth Sheehan, C2C President & Co-Founder, attended the 2018 Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship in Oxford, England. The highly-anticipated week-long event brought together social entrepreneurs from around the world to discuss and tackle the world’s most pressing problems such as the role of technology in improving health outcomes and lifting people out of poverty.
A key takeaway came from one session in particular, “Emerging Technologies: Shifting the Path from Poverty to Prosperity”. The discussion debated how the impact of rapid technological change on developing countries can benefit the poorest populations. Our friends at LivingGoods, who were part of this session, is looking at how technological innovations can improve health outcomes. They also explained that “there are many hurdles to overcome in using mobile technology to provide health advice and support. It is essential that services are designed to take these factors into account and find ways around these obstacles“. Other expert panelists agreed that emerging technology and its impact were just too simplified and should address the communities they are meant to serve.

Innovations in Healthcare Annual Forum:
Allison Howard-Berry, C2C Executive Director & Co-Founder, attended the 2018 Innovations in Healthcare (IiH) Annual Forum in Washington, DC. This two-day annual gathering brings together innovators and leaders in the social, private, and public sector to collaborate and exchange ideas and insights to support the scale and impact of promising healthcare innovations.
IiH introduced their new 2018 cohort who focus on care delivery, as they shared their strategies to ensure that the diverse populations they work with have access to affordable, high-quality healthcare. Congratulations to Biofourmis, Living Goods, OneWorld Health, and Reina Madre!

The Global Health & Innovation Conference:
Unite for Sight’s 2018 Global Health & Innovation Conference is the leading global health conference held at Yale University in New Haven, CT. This thought-leading conference convenes leaders, changemakers, and participants from all sectors of global health, international development, and social entrepreneurship.Catherine Guillou-Ouellette, C2C Program Manager in Haiti, flew in to participate and hear from various panels such as one by Jeffrey Sachs, Economist and Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, titled “How Health For All Is Within Our Grasp”. He gave a powerful presentation about prioritizing the strengthening of national public health systems in poor countries. We are happy to hear that Mr. Sacks is making a compelling case for what C2C is doing on the ground in Haiti through our strategic Public-Private Partnership with Haiti’s Health Ministry.

As C2C’s newest clinic gears up for the grand opening, we are grateful for the opportunity to keep learning and applying successful and effective strategies to continue expanding access to health services for vulnerable communities in Haiti!

C2C Wins Henry Schein Cares Silver Medal

Bill Barr, Vice President, Medical Marketing, Henry Schein, Inc.; Stanley Bergman, Chairman and CEO, Henry Schein, Inc.;
Dr. Samuel Bernard, C2C Chief Operating Officer; Racha Yehia, C2C Clinic Operations Manager; Jennifer Kim Field, Vice President,
Global Social Responsibility, Henry Schein, Inc.; Brad Connett, President, U.S. Medical Group, Henry Schein, Inc.

Dear Friends,

We are excited to share that C2C was awarded the Silver Medal in the Medical category of the third annual Henry Schein Cares Medal program, which took place at the Henry Schein Medical’s National Sales Meeting on April 12 in San Antonio, Texas.

C2C was recognized for its commitment to provide high-quality, low-cost health care to vulnerable families in northern Haiti. C2C clinics demonstrate that access to basic care, prevention education, and community support can be transformative and can save lives.

The Henry Schein Cares Program honors organizations from the fields of oral health, animal health, and medicine that demonstrate excellence in expanding access to care for the underserved. Stanley M. Bergman, Henry Schein’s Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, presented the medals to C2C and two other organizations, The Night Ministry (Chicago, Illinois) and Community Volunteers in Medicine, Inc. (West Chester, Pennsylvania). You can read the full press release here.

Thank you Henry Schein Cares for your commitment to helping C2C continue to provide access to care for vulnerable families in Haiti!