11 Jun Meet Our Malagasy Board Members!
One year ago, Pivot had just one Malagasy board member, Senior Advisor and Founding Board Member Dr. Benjamin Andriamihaja. And as truly wonderful as he is (i.e., no one can imagine Pivot existing or persisting without him), Benjamin was one person, one voice, and one perspective on a twenty-member Board of Directors. Being the sole Malagasy member of the board, as well as the only board member currently living in Madagascar, was a huge responsibility and we depended on Benjamin for a lot for our first seven years – from national diplomacy to program design to partner engagement.
For the past year, we have sought to diversify the Pivot Board of Directors with a crucial focus on increasing Malagasy representation to further our commitment to have those closest to the problems authoring the solutions. As of last month, we are proud to have five Malagasy board members!
To mark the occasion, Benjamin gathered the five board members for the first time this month in Tana (Madagascar’s capital city) and I am thrilled to give you a brief introduction to each of them here. With the organization now mature enough to have had incredible former staff – including Tahiry Raveloson, Fara Rabemananjara, and Seheno Randriamanantena – leave Ifanadiana to live in Tana, we have a talented and dedicated group of alumni to call upon. Luc Samison is new to Pivot but has been following our work from the start. As new in-person relationships can be formed again (i.e., in a post-COVID era), we look forward to increasing Malagasy membership further. And in addition to Malagasy representation on our board, we intend to focus on deepened governance by the communities we serve through links with these board members.
To spearhead the deepening of our community relations, new board member Faramalala (Fara) Rabemananjara will draw on her experience as the first leader of Pivot’s social work program in 2014. With a bachelor’s and two masters degrees in social work, Fara has both the training and compassion to build on trusted relationships to more deeply engage the communities we serve in Pivot governance, program design, and project evolution. Fara grew up in a small rural community herself and hiked to the farthest regions of Ifanadiana District during her five years with Pivot, paying home visits to countless patients and engineering solutions to problems one can only see with that sort of proximity. Fara currently lives in Tana where she and her husband Andres, a long-term member of the Pivot Science team, are expecting their first child, Inés, this July.
Together, we are striving toward a model of universal health coverage for the country of Madagascar. For these five Malagasy citizens, (grand)parents, doctors, social workers, finance professionals, and Pivot board members, that means striving to transform their own national healthcare system to reach all 26 million of their compatriots with quality, accessible healthcare. Health is the foundation of everything we face as a global community this century and beyond, from climate protection, to education, to economic development. Just as Ifanadiana District can be a model for Madagascar, together we believe Madagascar has the potential to serve as a model for other countries and communities around the globe facing complex challenges related to healthcare.
I offer my thanks to Benjamin Andriamihaja and Robin Herrnstein, Chair of the Pivot Board of Directors, for the nominations of these essential new board members during this difficult last year, and I look forward to welcoming more Malagasy members in the future. As Benjamin said to me just yesterday, “As a global health organization supported by many around the world, Pivot is serving as a recognized pioneer in Madagascar for the elevation of local leadership.”
We thank you for your part in the “many.” When COVID is behind us and we can safely travel to be together in Madagascar, I look forward to stepping out of our Zoom boxes and convening the Board of Directors in person and on the ground in Ifanadiana District alongside the family immersion week planned for summer of 2022. All Pivot community members welcome!