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Aman- Folks, welcome back to another episode of the I AM GPH podcast. And today marks the one-year anniversary of the war in Ukraine. Last year this time in 2022, there were a lot of shocking things we witnessed as a world and globally this was a topic of conversation, but there was one organization out of many that was involved directly in Ukraine during the invasion for support, and that was HealthRight. For the past 30-plus years, HealthRight has committed to expanding equitable access to quality healthcare for marginalized communities globally. They're on a mission to expand equitable access to quality health systems for these communities around the world. But I'm not gonna talk anymore about the organization because we have a very special guest from the organization today on the podcast. From HealthRight, we have Dr. Theresa Castillo, the chief program officer. Dr. Castillo has collaborated with various civil society organizations, UN agencies, and ministries of health to build local capacity and to strengthen public health system. Her research has focused on immigrant, refugee, and indigenous women and girls health issues. Currently, she's an adjunct faculty at NYU, Columbia University, and Bard College program on globalization and international affairs. With that said, we won't talk about Dr. Castillo anymore because we have her right here. Dr. Castillo, welcome to the I AM GPH podcast. We're happy to have you here.
Theresa Castillo- Thank you for having me. It is such a pleasure to be here and share more about HealthRight's work.
Aman- Awesome, love it. So for the listeners that are not familiar, right? There's so many organizations, but can you tell us about HealthRight International? What it means to you? How should we talk about it in the world?
Theresa Castillo- Yeah, thank you. HealthRight is such an invaluable organization. As you mentioned, for 30-plus years, we've been one of the leaders in working on that nexus of health and human rights. And most of that is around ensuring marginalized populations have that equitable access to healthcare. But we do that in a number of different ways. We want to strengthen healthcare systems and communities by focusing on a number of approaches. One, which is a rights-based approach, which means we look to build inclusive systems and that equity is at the forefront of our program design. The next is around community-driven work to ensure that our partnerships are led with and by communities that are central collaborators in improving health outcomes. We also work to ensure that our work is evidence-based, meaning that we're drawing from the latest research, that we're collaborating with faculty members at NYU and being able to adapt certain program designs or models to fit the context of the countries that we work within. And then we also want to integrate, as much as possible, the services within the existing health system. So if we're building, for example, like a shelter for women survivors of violence in Ukraine, that we're doing that in concert with the civil society and local actors and government within that area so that this particular intervention can be sustained. Because ultimately, we're looking for the ability to change systems and co-create solutions that can be a lasting fixture within the community and can really help invest in the infrastructure and build the community's capacity to do this work and sustain these innovations independently. Most of our work focuses on four core areas. That's HIV, mental health, violence, and RMNCAH, which stands for Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child, and Adolescent Health. It's a mouthful, but it's the acronym that is most used in the UN to refer to this body of work, realizing that women and children are among the most vulnerable population. And we focus on these four areas because they're overlapping and they're intersecting, and they're usually the most commonly found intersecting health issues that affect the most marginalized communities. So we focus on creating those solutions that can save lives and can last and endure within the community.
Aman- So there's a lot there and it seems like we can talk about everything in an entire podcast, every single thing. So let's take it into one direction and we will hop into so many, I would love to hear about RMNCAH, but maybe not for this podcast. I'm curious since it's the one-year anniversary today, I wanna hear what was the most fascinating thing about how HealthRight dealt with the war in Ukraine as a humanitarian response, right? 'Cause although through learning about the organization, I noticed that HealthRight focuses on rebuilding and strengthening communities, but how did this journey in Ukraine evolve over time? Because I'm sure people would love to hear about it. What was it like being in there and as an organization functioning?
Theresa Castillo- Mm-hmm.
Theresa Castillo- So, as HealthRight, we've been working in Ukraine since 2005. And we are very committed to the development and rebuilding of Ukraine as a country. And as many people know, in 2014, Russia invaded Crimea and tried to annex Crimea, which is now an occupied territory. So that protracted conflict that started in 2014 really became the bedrock for our current response in Ukraine, because that conflict along the border affected five oblasts or five regions. And we were operating in concert with UNICEF, UNFPA, the government of Ukraine, to implement gender-based violence crisis mobile teams that would go out and help identify gender-based violence survivors, give them access to services, to give them immediate counseling, to link them to local-based organizations. And so it was a model that we developed in concert with the local actors to help respond to the issues at hand. So we were still operating in this way up until February 24th last year, along with our various other projects that are dedicated to supporting survivors of violence and HIV. But when February 24th happened, all of our projects had to go through this huge shift, because ultimately, while we had heard inklings that something might happen with Russia, and it was in the news for quite some time, for a good couple months, even our staff, which at that time we had 200 staff members, all of them, who are Ukrainian, no one thought that this war would happen in this way. We thought it would be a smaller conflict in the same areas in the East. And when those strikes hit Kyiv, it changed the dynamics for our entire organization. We had to shift to crisis management. We had to think about supply chain management. We had to think about security. And our primary focus was staff welfare because all of our staff are Ukrainian. We were concerned about their needs, whether or not they were safe, their families were safe, if they made it to shelter, if they were crossing the border, if they were moving to another part of the country. So it was a really challenging time to understand what the immediate needs were. And us, as an inherently more of a development organization, as opposed to a humanitarian crisis organization, internally we needed to shift and think about how to build the right supports to aid our staff there and then also to shift focus of our current programming at that time. So despite working in this war zone, our aim to support the resilience of the Ukrainian people remained steadfast. We wanted to start delivering direct humanitarian services to the people who most needed it. So those crisis mobile teams that I mentioned became pivotal at that start when shelling started happening. They were our crisis mobile teams, which are staffed with a psychologist, a social worker, a legal protection officer, all of them were critical to making sure families were reunited, that they got the supplies that they need, that they knew where the safe passages were. And essentially, our goal was to shift all our projects to focus on immediate humanitarian relief and essential supplies, still focus on health, as well as social protection and child protection. So in that wake of the war, we ourselves had to learn how we could be resilient as an organization, how we could be nimble, how we could adapt and talk to our donors about the immediate needs, to do a crisis assessment, to understand what the communities were facing in real time, but also what our staff was facing in real time. And so it was quite challenging. I will say that in that time, over the past year, we currently have 87 crisis mobile teams that are operating across all of Ukraine, in western, central, southern Ukraine where the conflict is most heavily seen, and in the east. We have five Barnahus child protection centers. We have six community day centers. We operate three shelters for women survivors of violence. And we've received over 60 pallets of shipments from a partner named Afya Foundation that has helped us distribute blankets, first aid medical kits, medical supplies, and food packets across 15 regions. So our footprint over the past year has been quite large and we've been able to reach over a million people in country with those key services.
Aman- So there's a lot there. Wow. The organization's done so much. And the first thought that comes to my mind when you mentioned this is with COVID, for example, we saw a strong interest in 2020. And since then, the media had oversaturated and I feel that. Oftentimes we have become numb to it of what's going on with it. And I feel with the invasion of Ukraine, looking back one year ago, how has the media coverage changed over time? Because you're mentioning all these things that I'm going back, transported to last year, but then today I feel that I have not thought about it or heard about it as often as I was last year. So, any thoughts around how that has changed in the media?
Theresa Castillo- Yeah, it's so true. And I think that's a constant battle for any crisis. When you're working in emergency settings, that's just how things flow. The media right now is really focused on Turkey and Syria, as well as it should be with over 40,000 people who've died. It's tragic, but at the same time, there are multiple crises that are happening at the same time. So that urge for media to shine the spotlight on the most immediate crises is necessary, but there is an impact of that. And so for Ukraine, there was a huge support those first few months, but as we moved toward the fall of last year in 2022, there media was less interested. There were only so many takes that they could do on the war and specifically for us in terms of health. And so people just started talking less about the issue, and obviously, this also affects donations and funding. So that's why this month for us, we're really focused on launching this campaign during this week, commemorating this year anniversary to remind people about the situation in Ukraine, that they need help. And last year, as I mentioned, we reached 1.2 million people and we're looking to support even more people this year because our hope is that we could reach thousands more people who need these services. The fact remains, a lot of people left country early on during the war, but have since returned and want to contribute to rebuilding the country and remaining resilient, but they need help. And one such case is one of our clients, Oksana, who is 27 years old, and she was one of the survivors of the war. And when the war started, she had just started on her maternity leave, and her husband had lost his job and he was selling their furniture even for them to sustain themselves and keep themselves alive. But once the money ran out, he left and she was alone with the baby. And it was at that instance that she, at that moment, that she was introduced to our program, the SafeWomenHub, where she received not only psychological aid, but we helped her find a temporary place to live with her son. We connected to a partner organization so she could receive financial aid, and she became aware of more sources of employment. So we connected her to those resources and finding a place for her child to be in preschool. And at one point she said, "At this moment, I realized that I'm not lonely. I can heal and even start to plan for the future." So that's what we're trying to do in the midst of this war, find opportunities for hope to support these stories. We're not just providing aid and supplies, but we're helping to build communities that could imagine a better future so that there is a life beyond the current war.
Aman- Wow. That story, that story shook me a little bit. If you go back to last year, Dr. Castillo, is there something that you vividly remember through this crisis at the time, the month of March as it approached? What is a memory that you have from back then?
Theresa Castillo- One of the memories that I have is really just the resilience of our team. Because we were 150% supportive of our staff. We had around almost 200 staff members and we wanted to make sure they had shelter, they had food, they had the means to work. We wanted to make sure they had access to counseling. And since then, we started this initiative called the Caring for the Carers Initiative, just recognizing our staff is traumatized. They're watching their country be decimated in many different ways, but they themselves are still first responders and feel compelled to respond. So for me, what stands out is the resolve of our staff, their unwavering commitment. Even when we were trying to encourage them to take these days, these rest days, so that they wouldn't burn out, they still rose to the occasion. When they were not on working hours, they were still volunteering their time at different pop-up shelters and churches and schools to ensure people had the resources that they needed. And I think a lot of that comes from the, it's part of the stand against the Russians and the invasion. It's like their way of defying this really horrible act of going in and trying to take over resources and spaces that belong to another country. So. And still to this day, I mean, our staff, they're heroes. They are heroes beyond. It's very humbling.
Aman- I'm sure a lot of people, and I absolutely agree with you. To me, I can feel the resilience, and it's been a year and you're mentioning this, and we can feel that passion that's coming from the staff and the people that are involved and everyone. So thank you for sharing that one with us. I'm curious too. You have so many amazing projects going on and we have touched the surface of what happened in Ukraine at the organization, and I'm sure a lot of students are curious to learn more here at NYU about HealthRight, and how do they get involved? Are there any internships? So, do you have any information regarding that?
Theresa Castillo- Yeah, you know, I'm so glad you asked that question because we actually have such a unique relationship and partnership with NYU, and more specifically, GPH. Back in 2014, we entered into this partnership that promotes collaborative research with faculty members, learning opportunities for students, which includes internships, and then a commitment to contributing to a broader shared community dialogue between NYU and HealthRight. So more specifically, with respect to internships, every semester we have new internships. This summer for the very first time, we have a new program called The Summer Experience, which allows a group of NYU students to go with some of our staff to visit one of our country offices and spend two weeks there, learning from other students, who are at the local university, and having that sort of educational exchange while learning more about how NGOs work in this space, how they work with researchers on the ground, how they work with NYU faculty members, and what programming actually looks like on the ground. So we need all students, actually, to be the word of mouth, to help promote also the communication messages that we're highlighting. Particularly for this month, we're focused on supporting our Ukraine relief efforts. So we have a campaign that has a hashtag, #dontGiveUpOnUkraine. So if students want to go to our IG handle and share any content on social media, we'd love that, it would be so appreciative. And this way we'll have more of our presence to share and raise our visibility about the work we're doing, and hopefully, we'll also receive more financial support in donations so that we can impact more lives in Ukraine.
Aman- Lots of options for you, students. Thanks for giving us that info, Dr. Castillo.
Theresa Castillo- Sure.
Aman- What do you see in the future of HealthRight? What is in the future of this organization?
Theresa Castillo- That's such a big question. What do I see in the future of HealthRight? Well, I imagine continued growth in our four areas of HIV, mental health, violence, and RMNCAH. Honestly, what we've learned in the past couple years is that looking at projects in a siloed way can be very limiting. And what I mean by that is that perhaps there would be a project, which would be called like the HIV project, but obviously, HIV crosses many different health issue areas, including climate change. So for me, as chief program officer, one of the areas of growth that I see is in this area of climate change and how it intersects with these four health issues, but also how these four health issues overlap with one another. So if we were to stick with this example of HIV, we could take HIV and layer in mental health and climate change. So, what are the challenges for individuals who are HIV positive? And how do they manage their mental health needs, especially if they're living in rural Sub-Saharan Africa and they're focusing on or they're exposed to extreme climate changes in these areas that may have severe droughts or even flooding, which affects their crops? So everything is interconnected and any organization in this space should really be focused on how we can respond on multiple levels.
Aman- Y'all are doing some amazing work, Dr. Castillo. And it's admirable to see that there's organizations like this all around. So, where can we learn more? Where can we support the campaigns? Where can students, or even listeners, learn more about the organization? Anything you'd like to shout out for our podcast?
Theresa Castillo- For sure, yes. Go to our website. It's www.healthright.org. People could also follow us on Facebook and Instagram to know more about our programming or other ways to donate or even to learn about our internship program. And everyone's support matters this year because public interest is waning, especially for Ukraine. And Ukraine still needs us. For those who are currently on campus at NYU, we have an event that's coming up on March 8th, which is the International Day of the Girl. And the title of that event is Reconstructing the Resilience Narrative: Reflections from Ukraine. And we'll be fortunate enough to have our Ukraine Country Director, Halyna Skipalska, who will be on campus, and she'll be discussing the lessons learned and the way forward with our HealthRight CEO Professor, Peter Navario. And that will be at 10:00 am at the GPH building in room 801, but it will also be livestreamed through Zoom Webinars. So I hope to see people there. It'd be great to have some support.
Aman- Awesome, folks, check out the website, we'll throw the link in the description as well. And with that, Dr. Castillo, thank you so much for your time and sharing all these stories and insights about what's going on. It was lovely having you on the podcast today.
Theresa Castillo- Thank you so much. It's great to be here.