Role Models for Change

During West Africa’s devastating Ebola epidemic in 2014, the Liberian Ministry of Health and Last Mile Health—an organization that delivers primary health care to some of the most remote corners of the country – collaborated with other partners to create a unified national policy to extend health services to remote Liberians. Together, they established Liberia’s Community Health Assistant Program, a network of trained community health workers and nurses who provide medical services in rural, remote communities. Now, Last Mile Health is working with the Ministry of Health and a coalition of other NGOs to ensure the national program achieves full coverage of all 1.2 million rural Liberians by recruiting, training, and deploying 5,000 frontline health workers.

James Nardella recently sat down with Raj Panjabi, co-founder and CEO of Last Mile Health, to talk about healthcare inequity, lasting systems change, and how he found his way into medicine.

Welcome to Role Models for Change, a series of insightful conversations with social entrepreneurs and other innovators on the front lines of some of the world’s most pressing problems.

Today we’re talking with Safeena Husain, Founder and CEO of Educate Girls. Growing up in Delhi, India, Safeena found refuge and opportunity in education. She went on to study in the UK before building a career in community-based development. Educate Girls is an Indian NGO that enrolls and retains out-of-school girls and increases learning for both girls and boys. They’ve reached 2.5 million children in India and are on a path to reach 4.4 million in the next five years.