What is Clinics Rising?
Founded by a group of designers, filmmakers, technologists, researchers and philanthropists, ClinicsRising.com is a destination and organization that, through storytelling, brings attention and advocacy to the under-served, impoverished and under-privileged. It is a medium that showcases the challenges and change possible when humans band together, unselfishly.
Clinics Rising is a venue for showing how stories can be told, using a combination of rich media, traditional media, broadcast/film, audio and photojournalism.
We also feature stories of technologies that fuel innovative ways to solve some of the most fundamental issues facing clinics across the globe: water, power, sanitation, medicine, staffing, communication, and education in global health.
We are trying to change the way media is looked at within organizations and among individuals, while simultaneously giving a voice to the under-served.
The need for telling stories of social injustice… stories of the under-privileged, impoverished, and forgotten… has never been more paramount. With unprecedented amounts of philanthropic energy now part of popular culture, each and every one of us can help, even if just by paying attention to these circumstances, raising global awareness.
Clinics Rising's first story is of one small clinic in Rwanda -- a story about human empowerment, suffering, frustration, and injustice -- stories about those who are there to help, stories about ingenuity, stories about the cultural divide. Sean Clauson, a filmmaker, has been in Bisate, Rwanda for the past 11 months, documenting the building of a clinic and the resulting community around it.
We are looking for talent interested in producing long- and short- form human-interest stories about medical clinics around the world, and the challenges faced with designing, building and sustaining them. From clean water to sanitary bathrooms and power shortages, we are looking to tell empathic, yet powerful and empowering, stories.
If you would like to help us tell the stories, or know of a interesting story needing to be told please contact me here
Thank You,
Peter Raymond
Founder Clinics Rising
I have added some questions often asked:
1) What is your background and how did the idea for Clinics Rising come about?
I am a creative director, communications consultant and inventor. I have designed and developed everything from TV programming, web sites, museum exhibits and simulators, to entire communications strategies. In the end, I love to solve extremely challenging problems.
I started ClinicsRising.com out of the need to tell the stories often left untold, about amazing work in health care, worldwide. After Katrina hit New Orleans in the United States, I tried, unsuccessfully, to assemble a volunteer crew to visit New Orleans, find stories and expose some of the incredible work being done by emergency care workers and mobile clinics in the weeks immediately following the storm. I could find plenty of people who wanted to do this as a job, but not as volunteers.
During this time, working as a creative consultant on new web design strategy for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, I observed the increasing amount of challenges they were facing, as how to best tell the world what (and why) they are doing as an organization. This is the world’s largest foundation, and they have the exact same issues as the smaller NGOs. I found this intriguing because it could readily be addressed with very thoughtful and sensitive storytelling.
Sean Clauson, who had worked for me as a producer on commercial projects (and who now has been in Rwanda for over a year and a half), told me about a project his sister, Laura Clauson, was working on in Bisate. Sean chose to go to Rwanda and document his sister’s journey through this project. This became our first story, the story of Bisate Clinic, about the challenges and triumphs organizations face, when working in remote parts of the globe, as well as next door. CCHIPS was created as a pilot project of Wyman Worldwide Health Partners, run by Ro and Bill Wyman, a compassionate couple from New Hampshire. On Jan. 20, of this year, they brought us with them to Bisate to see the amazing work that has been done so far.
2) What were your intentions in founding it? What were your ultimate hopes and goals?
My intentions were to bring a high level of quality and talent in media and storytelling to smaller organizations, who really need to spend their resources on "doing the work". I have found that media and fundraising materials are usually an after-thought, addressed quickly, by putting together something that does not truly flatter or tell the authentic stories of the end goals of these organizations.
My ultimate goal is to create a fully-sustainable, socially-responsible media company that can grant organizations the gift of well-crafted storytelling that is both convincing and compelling. Working with our producers, writers, filmmakers, designers and photographers, we can facilitate the telling of their stories in the way they need to be told, while simultaneously creating a destination, ClinicsRising.com, where people gravitate to find these compelling stories and the organizations they don't yet know about. We believe in making philanthropy a successful business, in fully creating the type of reach and growth we know to be possible.
I believe social entrepreneurship is the path to truly changing the world, while creating responsibility and accountability, in ways that non-profits have not always found success.
3) When was it founded and how has it grown since?
Clinics Rising was founded in June 2006, and we launched ClinicsRising.com in December 2007. Currently, we have over 250 hours of footage that we’re editing into vignettes and short stories. In the first few months after our launch, we received 6,000 visitors and delivered over 55 hours of programming.
4) What has been your biggest challenge and your greatest reward?
The biggest challenge has been funding. Creating and producing superior content, at the scale we are working is tremendously costly, and to date the funding has been entirely out of our own pockets. We do not want to burden organizations with having to fund these stories. This is why I want to create a social business that can become fully self-sustainable, without having to fundraise or ask for donations, ourselves. We develop content that can be sold to raise funds for the next story and maintain sustainability. Very much a pay it forward model.
The greatest reward was seeing, with my own eyes, Bisate Health Center and Shingiro Clinic and the amazing transformation they underwent, from a dark and dirty places, where people would come to die, to the beautiful and thriving community center we now see. Having the ability and resources to share this transformation has been, by far, the most rewarding part. Although learning about others who have benefited from the project, as well, has been very interesting, too. There have been life-changing effects as a result, with the realization of personal dreams. Elie Sebigoli, the project translator and program director, is in the process of building a new home for his family because of his employment through the project. Alice Nyiransengimana. the CCHIPS housekeeper, raising her two children after her husband left them, has been able to start her own restaurant and catering company. These are only two of many stories, each inspiring in its own way.
There are so many stories to tell with each project, that it becomes wonderfully overwhelming, such as the photography and video pen-pal exchange between students at the Bisate School and a class of Bronx, NY high school students who are studying Rwanda. Now, the Bronx students can actually talk with the Bisate students, with a two-way sharing of questions and experiences,. Their exchange, via videos, photos and essays, helps to bridge the gap between two very different cultures, At the same time, the young people, separated on two continents, are ultimately discovering surprising similarities, leading to greater tolerance and compassion. This is about so much more than a single health clinic and the treatment of disease. From out of the darkness, it is a path to peace and personal empowerment.
5) Where do you see the organization in five or ten years?
In five years, I would like ClinicsRising.com to be THE destination for compelling content and information on global health. We would have a network of producers, filmmakers, writers and photographers, who can traverse the globe, finding these amazing stories, and producing not only media for the web, but also TV programming and feature documentaries.
My vision is to develop ClinicsRising.com as a repository for information on technologies and techniques for building in different climates, engineering resources, water, sanitation and power systems that can be shared freely with other organizations or individuals. There is no need to reinvent the wheel, yet we see it happen on every project, as the information from one project is not shared with others. This sharing expands manpower and resources exponentially. Open source philanthropy, if you will, the idea that everyone can help, and you don't always need a lot of money to do so. A synergy of sorts, with far greater results than the sum of the individual components.