Where Hope Begins: The Save One Life Podcast

In this episode of Where Hope Begins: The Save One Life Podcast, we sit down with Megan Adediran, president and executive director of the Hemophilia Foundation of Nigeria (HFN).

Megan's story began generations before she was born. Her great-grandmother lost four sons and her grandmother lost nine, all to bleeding after circumcision that no one could explain. The family came to believe that having sons was taboo. Then, in 1996, Megan's 10-day-old son Timothy bled uncontrollably after his own circumcision. What followed was nearly two years of hospital stays, blood transfusions, and doctors telling her it was nothing, until a clotting test at Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital gave the family a name for it: hemophilia. Megan was told there was no treatment in Nigeria and that boys like Timothy rarely lived past age three. She looked at the doctor and said, "My son will not die."

From a cyber café, Megan taught herself about hemophilia, found a mentor at the South African Hemophilia Foundation, and eventually emailed her story to 67 organizations. Three days later, Dr. Assad Haffar of the World Federation of Hemophilia replied. On July 4, 2004, a DHL box of donated factor reached her office. It changed Timothy's care overnight and led to the founding of HFN on World Hemophilia Day 2005, with Timothy as its only member.

Megan shares how a live TV appearance, where the host insisted hemophilia "does not affect Black people," brought in 45 patients in a single week. She talks about her own denial when her second son, Isaac, showed signs of hemophilia years after she had started the foundation, and about the long campaign that ended with Nigeria's Ministry of Health naming bleeding disorders a priority non-communicable disease in 2022. She also describes Save One Life's role as HFN's platinum camp sponsor, a camp that grew from 20 boys over one weekend to about 100 campers for a full week. Her message to mothers facing a new diagnosis: you are not alone, hemophilia is not a death sentence, and there is a community ready to help.

In this episode of Where Hope Begins: The Save One Life Podcast, host Kai sits down with Chanthearithy "Rithy" Run, newly elected President of the Cambodian Hemophilia Association (CHA), and Choryee Hun, CHA's Secretary General and Save One Life's Project Manager in Cambodia.

Rithy, who lives with hemophilia B, traces his own path from a childhood of surgeries and isolation to a 2014 World Federation of Hemophilia youth fellowship, a Save One Life scholarship that funded his master's degree, and now a law degree he'll complete next year — all while rising through a decade of volunteer roles at CHA to become its president. Choryee shares the harder side of that same history: losing her brother to a bleed in an era before Cambodia had access to factor concentrate, and now raising a son of her own with hemophilia while running CHA's day-to-day operations. Together they walk through how far hemophilia care in Cambodia has come since CHA's founding in 2008, and how far it still has to go.

In this episode of Where Hope Begins: The Save One Life Podcast, host Kai sits down with Rich Williams — this year's Wheels for the World cross-country rider, and the first ever to make the journey by motorcycle. At 75, Rich is riding from Portland, Oregon to Portland, Maine to honor Barry Haarde's legacy, but his connection to this cause runs four decades deep: the loss of his infant twin, his son Trevor's severe Hemophilia A diagnosis, the deaths of two wives who each shaped Trevor's care, and a friendship with Save One Life founder Laurie Kelley that began before the organization itself took shape.

Rich talks candidly about the financial and emotional toll of raising a child with a bleeding disorder in the 1980s and '90s, how grief repeated itself in his life, and how he's turned decades of loss into service — through this ride, and through his volunteer work honoring fallen veterans with the Patriot Guard of Montana.

In this episode of Where Hope Begins: The Save One Life Podcast, host Kai Sorensen sits down with Dr. Shahla Tariq Sohail, a pediatrician, a woman living with von Willebrand disease, and the founder of one of Save One Life's most successful country models anywhere in the world.

In this episode of Where Hope Begins: The Save One Life Podcast, host Kai Sorensen sits down with Andrea Hernandez Trinidad, president of Hemophilia Advocates – Philippines (HAP) and internationally recognized as the face of hemophilia in the Philippines.

In this episode of Where Hope Begins: The Save One Life Podcast, host Kai Sorensen sits down with Agnes Kisakye, founder of the Hemophilia Foundation of Uganda (HFU) and recipient of the 2025 NNHF Community Award.

Agnes traces her journey from a terrifying family mystery in 2004—her four-year-old nephew Jovan bleeding uncontrollably with no explanation—through a diagnostic odyssey that required shipping a sample to South Africa, to a chance meeting with another family that connected her to Lori Kelly, Save One Life’s Project SHARE, and the donated factor that changed everything. From that single act of connection grew a national movement: today HFU has helped identify more than 450 people with hemophilia across Uganda, supported a network of treatment centers, and trained more than 620 healthcare professionals.

Agnes also speaks candidly about the triple burden Ugandan mothers carry—stigma, abandonment, and financial strain—and why HFU’s new entrepreneurship training program for women is as essential to long-term care as any dose of factor. Her message to listeners is unmistakable: every single penny sent through Save One Life has a name.

In this episode of Where Hope Begins: The Save One Life Podcast, host Kai Sorensen sits down with three longtime members of the Save One Life community—Vaughn Ripley, Doug Mildram, and Ujjwal Bhattarai—to talk about Wheels for the World 2026, Save One Life’s largest and most inclusive virtual ride yet.

Together, they share what drew each of them to this community—whether through a personal diagnosis, a son’s bleeding disorder, or a relationship with Save One Life’s founder—and what keeps them coming back to the saddle year after year. From cross-country relays carrying the Save One Life flag to 10-mile rides on a rest day, they make one thing unmistakably clear: every mile counts, and every rider belongs.

They also get honest about the physical and emotional demands of long-distance riding, the unexpected joy of community along the route, and why the fundraising conversation matters just as much as the training—because what’s ultimately at stake is factor access for children around the world who don’t have it.

In this episode of Where Hope Begins: The Save One Life Podcast, host Kai Sorensen sits down with Dr. Maureen Miruka, founder of the Jose Memorial Hemophilia Society of Kenya (JMHSK)—a leader whose story began with a mother’s fight to understand her son’s unexplained bleeding, and deepened through the loss of her son Jose to hemophilia complications in 2007.

Maureen shares what it took to pursue diagnosis and care in a system with limited resources, the long bus rides families still take to reach treatment, and the isolation of not knowing another parent facing the same condition. She also explains how partnership with Save One Life helped grow advocacy, access to factor through Project SHARE, and a more holistic model of support—including peer groups, scholarships, micro-enterprise grants, and cash transfers that restore stability and dignity.

In this episode of Where Hope Begins: The Save One Life Podcast, host Kai Sorensen speaks with Usha Parthasarathy, Save One Life’s India Program Coordinator—a woman whose life has been shaped by hemophilia across generations. Usha shares the deeply personal losses of her father and first son, and how those experiences fueled a lifelong commitment to community-building, advocacy, and practical support for families living with bleeding disorders in India.

Together, they explore why real change happens up close—in families’ homes, through relationships, listening, and trust—and how sponsorship helps create not just survival, but confidence, stability, and a future.

In the very first episode of Where Hope Begins: The Save One Life Podcast, host Kai Sorensen sits down with Laurie Kelley—author, advocate, and the founder of Save One Life—to trace the origin story behind a question that changed everything: Could one family help another, across borders?

Laurie shares the personal moments that shaped her purpose—from raising a child with hemophilia to witnessing the realities of global poverty and untreated bleeding disorders firsthand. Together, they unpack why Save One Life is built not just on medicine, but on dignity, education, and opportunity—because when a child is supported, the impact can ripple through generations.