Welcome to Episode 8—the final episode of the third season of An Act of Courage! Over the last seven weeks, Jean Pierre Louise and Jo Ann Heppermann have talked with lots of folks about how capracare’s and PG Rotary’s story began and how they got to where they are today. Now is the time to talk about what is next. While today is the final episode of this third season, it clearly is not the final chapter of this story. Support the show ______________________ Help us fund crit...

Welcome to Episode 7 of this 3rd season of an Act of Courage podcast. Today we are going to hear from three Haitian women who heard about the opportunity to be screened for cervical cancer by the folks from capracare—and said yes! Support the show ______________________ Help us fund critical healthcare, emergency relief, education and development programs to residents in the Southern District of Haiti To donate or learn more about capracare, visit us at capracare.org If you'd like to be fea...

Welcome to Episode 6 of this 3rd season of an Act of Courage podcast. Today is about capracare’s Surviving and Conquering story! We’re going to hear from members of the capracare staff in Fonfrede, Haiti—who, by hook or crook, continue to screen women, working to rein in cervical cancer in Haiti! Support the show ______________________ Help us fund critical healthcare, emergency relief, education and development programs to residents in the Southern District of Haiti To donate or learn...

Welcome to Episode 5 – Bringing Cervical Cancer Screenings to Maison de Naissance! Today, we are talking about Maison de Naissance, a birthing home in Torbeck, Haiti. In the midst of our hope, sometimes despair, and resourcefulness needed to get the capracare project off the ground, by fate, faith, or chance, we learned of another opportunity to bring cervical cancer screenings to another organization. Jean and I are talking with Jim Grant, the Executive Director of the Gl...

Welcome to Episode 4 – Hope, Despair & Resourcefulness! We’ve talked a bit about the adversity we encountered to get our cervical cancer screening off the ground—and we promised to tell you the rest of the story! Today, Jean and I are going to talk with Dr. Steve Papillon, the doctor with capracare at the beginning of this saga—and the project manager of the Global Grant for us on the ground in Haiti. Dr. Muriel Harris is also back with us to help us remember and celebrate the resou...

Welcome to Episode 3—The Highs and Lows of Adversity! So, we’ve talked about our story began, screening methods, and the importance of screening women in Haiti for cervical cancer. Today, laugh and sigh with Jean and Jo Ann as they talk about the challenges they dealt with as capracare and Rotary worked to get this project off the ground. Joining them are two fellow Rotarians from the Prospect/Goshen Club, Dr. Muriel Harris and Sheila Stoke. Sheila, the CPA of the group, was...

Welcome to Season 3 Episode 2 - What We’re Trying to Do and the Science Behind It In our first episode we talked about how the collaboration between capracare and the Prospect Goshen Rotary Club started. Today we are going to focus on the screening methods used to detect cervical cancer, the science behind it and why it is so important to the women of Haiti. Jean and I are very grateful to have with us two women from Haiti—both of whom are familiar with cervical cancer screenings—and ...

Welcome to Season 3 Episode 1—The Beginning of Our Story. Jean and I are thrilled you have joined us. And we have with us today Stacy Bailey-Ndyaie. Stacy is the founder and executive director of Bridge Kids International, headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky but with groups of young folks who are doing good work all over the world. Stacy herself was already well schooled in international travel and service by the time she joined the Prospect/Goshen Rotary Club in 2...

This is episode number 13, our season finale, and today we’re talking to a long-time capracare friend and former co-chair of the CapraCare Health Care Committee, Rory Sweeny McGovern. Rory served in health care for over 35 years. She has held Nursing Education Administrative positions in several tri-state major safety net medical centers. She has worked all this time in underserved tertiary care hospital systems directing the operations of nursing education in the 5 NY city boroughs, Newark, ...

This is episode number twelve, and today we dive into an amazing conversation with our very own Board of Directors member, Dr. Helene Nau, a board-certified Family Practitioner and Founder of Health 360 Direct Primary Care in Hollywood, FL. A Practice with the mission of delivering affordable and accessible quality care to families. Dr. Aunty Helene, as many of her teenage patients call her, moved to the United States in 2010 from Haiti, where she built from the ground up and ran the only eme...

This is episode number eleven, and today we speak with Patricia Cornet, a changemaker and healthcare committee member at capracare. Pat is passionate about delivering health-focused solutions to ensure access to innovative treatments for patients and advancing women's careers and the development of young girls. She has over fifteen years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry and is the Co-Founder of Women of Color in Pharma. She’s an expert in external relations, designing roles that b...

This is episode number ten, and today we have the pleasure of speaking with Dr. Junior Brice, the Director of Mental Health at Partners in Health, a global non-profit organization focused on providing a preferential option for the poor in health care. In January 2022, in collaboration with capracare, Dr. Brice sent his staff to capracare Haiti to provide mental health training to capracare staff. In this episode, we discuss Haitian mental health related to the past 12 years of the ongoing cri...

This is episode nine, and today I’m excited to present our special guest, David Mercaldo. David is a long-time capracare changemaker and former Youth Program Committee Member. Outside of capracare, He is a tech-savvy educator with over fifteen years of classroom experience who is most ardent about closing the opportunity gap for underserved children. He is deeply in tune with the social-emotional needs of his students and relishes opportunities to promote literacy and leadership skills....

This is episode number 8, and today I’m interviewing capracare’s Board member and Jean Pierre-Louis’s former undergraduate professor, Dr. Jean Grassman. She is an industrial hygienist and environmental health scientist with over 25 years of experience. Her specialty includes studying the sources, detection, and impact of chemical exposure in vulnerable populations with an emphasis on biological monitoring approaches. Today she teaches biology-based public health courses to undergraduates at B...

This is episode number 7 and today I’m honored to host capracare’s Board of Directors Chairman, Cordell Brown. Cordell was the first board member recruited by our CEO Jean Pierre-Louis. Cordell spent most of his career with Metlife in the strategic planning field; he was responsible for driving and implementing strategic planning policies and processes, monitoring performance against plans, and supporting significant initiatives that drove results. After retiring, he knew in his heart he wasn...

Welcome to Season 2 of An Act of Courage! Hosted by Marielis Figueroa, this season we are bringing in more global health topics and partnerships! So what are you waiting for? Subscribe to our podcast; we cannot wait for you to join us. This podcast is brought to you by capracare,a trusted community health resource in the Southern region of Haiti, providing over 400,000 service encounters since 2009. Did you know that our organization mobilizes local volunteers and staff, healthcare and publi...

Meet Dr. Cassandra Esperant. Dr. Esperant is a pharmacist that practices HIV prevention. She believes that educating the urban community will decrease the disparities in the HIV pandemic due to institutionalized racism. As a black woman she is passionate about decreasing the divide in the black communities by empowering them to take initiative to lessen the divide and take back control. Cassandra would like pharmacist to prescribe HIV prevention regimen per collaborative agreement to patients...

Meet Rosemonde Pierre Louis. Rose is a highly recognized public sector leader known for driving social and economic change. Ms. Pierre-Louis is the Executive Director of the McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research at New York University. She is also the host of season two of the podcast Black Boys and Men: Changing The Narrative. From 2014-2016, Ms. Pierre-Louis served as Commissioner of the NYC Mayor’s Office to Combat Domestic Violence (OCDV). Ms. Pierre-Louis also served a...

Meet Skyler Badenoch, CEO of the organization Hope for Haiti. During this conversation, we bring you back to Skyler’s early days. The days when he was a serial intern, eager to learn anything and everything about the world. His first experiences within the world of public health was in West Africa where he found himself serving for the Peace Corps. He speaks of moments of riding through earthy puddles in torrential downpour, running around with children who teased him for his terrible native ...

Meet Jo Ann Heppermann! She is the Chair of the International Service Committee of the Prospect/Goshen Rotary Club in Kentucky. During this conversation, Jo Ann gives us a glimpse of how her life changed after one trip to Haiti with capracare and her experience with meeting a Haitian woman. This is her “Rotary Moment.” After this trip, she became dedicated to serving the women of Haiti who suffer from cervical cancer. Did you know that cervical cancer is Haiti’s leading cause of death i...