Global community, local impact
2025 HEAL Impact Report
A Letter From HEAL's Co-Founder
With over 10 years of partnerships and more than 250 fellows and alumni worldwide, this year HEAL witnessed the impacts of U.S. policy decisions on vulnerable populations around the globe and at home. In Uganda, our partners and fellows had to close down lifesaving HIV/AIDS clinics. Patients in California are scared to seek care amid U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids. Navajo fellows dealt with the possibility of severe cuts and government shutdowns.
We have been so heartened to see the resilience of HEAL Fellows as they struggle alongside their patients and bring back those lessons to each other across geographies. Moments like these remind us why we started HEAL. When fellows employed by the Indian Health Service faced job uncertainty, HEAL launched our second, Indigenous-led Southwest Leadership Program to reaffirm our support of health providers in Navajo and Zuni Nations. As California faced planned cuts to Medi-Cal and the impact of military-style ICE raids, HEAL Fellows gathered in the Central Valley for community support and information sharing, so they could bring back practical tools to protect their patients at home. As Malawi braced itself for heavy cuts to healthcare due to USAID and economic vulnerability due to climate change, the Malawi Leadership Program launched to support 12 public sector health workers mentored by HEAL alumni across the country.
In these moments of crisis, we know that HEAL’s mission—to connect, train, and mentor healthcare workers committed to resource-denied areas, building a lifelong community of leaders transforming health systems from within—is more important than ever. HEAL has undergone powerful changes over the last couple of years. Our cohorts are now driven by alumni to best support the health workers in their communities. We now run cohorts in California, Navajo Nation, Malawi, and Mexico (in Spanish). The curriculum and mentorship are localized, but the thread of global solidarity runs through all we do with fellows across the world coming together and learning from each other. This has allowed us to grow both the number of fellows each year as well as the impact on health workers who are often the least supported and most overwhelmed in their communities.
In Solidarity,
Sriram Shamasunder, MD, DTM&H, on behalf of the HEAL team
HEAL Co-Founder & Executive Director
Where we've been
Building a Global Health Community
Ten years ago, HEAL started with the same goal it has today—to support healthcare workers most proximal to preventable deaths with the community, training, and mentorship they need to improve the health of their communities. In 2015, it looked like U.S. physicians rotating between underserved domestic and global sites, connecting them with local healthcare workers in both. This model built capacity in local health systems while immersing the rotating physicians in the cultural context of the communities they cared for.
Over the past 10+ years, HEAL has built global partnerships in 10 countries and the Navajo, Zuni, and Pascua Yaqui tribes, and we’ve created an alumni network of over 250 healthcare workers. Over this period, we saw a shifting need in global health—the need for locally owned and led health systems solutions. Witnessing the devastating consequences of gutting USAID this year has only reaffirmed this belief.
Where We're Going
Meeting the Global Health Moment
So, how does HEAL meet this unprecedented moment? We decentralized our programming and shifted our efforts to a model focused on local health systems and providers. To do that, HEAL built location-specific programs led by alumni, who are rooted in the communities they serve. Only made possible by our 10+ years of partnerships created in our global model, HEAL carries forward our core elements of connecting, training, and mentoring healthcare workers in resource-denied communities.
Our Model:
We identify and partner with healthcare institutions and local governments around the world that serve marginalized communities, need to fill healthcare vacancies and share HEAL’s values.
We recruit healthcare workers deeply committed to the communities in which we work and who are passionate and committed to caring for the underserved.
We provide intensive training in advocacy, leadership, and power dynamics to shift health workers’ approach to healthcare to address the root causes of disease, not just the symptoms.
We pair fellows with mentors from similar cultural backgrounds who provide tailored guidance to help set and achieve professional goals.
We connect healthcare workers with a global community of peers facing similar barriers and create a space to share ideas, develop collaborative solutions, and offer mutual support.
Our Impact
We know retaining healthcare workers improves continuity of care, which leads to positive community health outcomes. We also know that connecting, training, and mentoring healthcare workers can prevent burnout while laying the foundation for long-term improvements to their healthcare system.
In 2025...
75
Healthcare workers were connected, trained, and mentored through HEAL
~84,000
patients served by HEAL Fellows
373
hours of training in leadership, advocacy, power & privilege, and structural competency across all programs
92%
of fellows say HEAL has changed their approach to work in healthcare
Preventing Unwanted Pregnancies in Uganda
In Mbale, Uganda, Dr. Assen Kamwesigye, an OBGYN, often saw young girls arrive at her clinic with dangerous complications from unsafe (and in Uganda, illegal) abortions. Many returned just months later with another unwanted pregnancy. Equipped with the systems thinking, asset-mapping, and advocacy skills from her time at HEAL, Dr. Kamwesigye looked at how she could address the root cause of these life-threatening abortion complications. Dr. Kamwesigye heard from her coworkers that they were often too busy to spend time counseling patients about family planning options.
So she came up with a simple fix that built on the strengths of her clinic and team: installing a TV in the ward where women with abortion complications are attended to that played short videos about contraception options. The videos gave the patients essential information while freeing up staff to focus on answering questions and providing long-term birth control. The result? Fewer repeat complications, fewer unwanted pregnancies, and more girls with the chance to plan their futures. Strengthening healthcare workers’ ability to analyze systems and mobilize community assets allows them to prevent poor health outcomes before they arrive in the clinic.
2 out of 3
fellows continued serving their HEAL site for at least a year after the fellowship
Sustaining Healthcare Leaders Breaking the Cycle of Incarceration in Los Angeles
When Dr. Viet Nguyen became Chief Medical Officer for Los Angeles County’s Office of Diversion and Reentry, she found herself in uncharted territory. Her medical training prepared her to treat patients, but not to lead large teams, navigate complex systems, or sustain herself as she figured it all out.
“I probably would have quit if it weren’t for HEAL,” Dr. Nguyen admits.
Through her Global HEAL Fellowship, she gained practical leadership skills, learning about leadership as a practice. She also found mentors with similar paths and a community of peers who reminded her she wasn’t alone in working to improve health systems. Together, they shared what it means to lead with compassion, persistence, and solidarity.
Now, Dr. Nguyen oversees efforts that have diverted more than 14,000 people over the past 10 years from returning to jail into mental health and housing programs in Los Angeles, California, the same community she grew up in and served as a HEAL Fellow. On her hardest days, she still leans on her HEAL mentor and co-fellows for guidance and strength. “There is so much work out there, and I can’t do it alone,” Dr. Nguyen says. “HEAL helped me see that doing my part, with others beside me, is exactly what’s needed.”
18
nurses serving Navajo and Zuni Nations, making HEAL’s Southwest Leadership Program one of the largest Indigenous led healthcare leadership programs in the US
How Community Keeps Nurses in Navajo Nation
In Navajo Nation, Dr. Cristina Rivera Carpenter is working at the same hospital where she began her career 16 years ago. An Indigenous woman and single mother of five at the time, she balanced clinical work, teaching, and family while earning her master’s and PhD in nursing. What kept her going? Community.
During her HEAL Fellowship, while starting her PhD program, a co-fellow reminded Dr. Rivera Carpenter that “being strong doesn’t mean doing everything yourself, it’s about knowing when to lean on others and when to let them lean on you.” Through HEAL, Dr. Rivera Carpenter found that community. Mentors like Dr. Michelle Kahn-John, a PhD-prepared nurse, psychiatric nurse practitioner, healer, and Indigenous scholar, guided, encouraged, and advocated for her as a Robert Wood Johnson Future Nursing Scholar, which helped pay for her PhD program. Dr. Adriann Begay, a HEAL alum, became her mentor and anchor through her hardest moments—so much so that Dr. Rivera Carpenter named her daughter’s middle name after her. “So many times it felt impossible, but as a community, we made it through,” Dr. Rivera Carpenter reflects.
Now, Dr. Rivera Carpenter is helping other nurses do the same. Working alongside Dr. Begay, she’s shaping HEAL’s new Southwest Leadership Program, designed to support and retain nurses serving Indigenous communities. “HEAL changed my life, my family’s life, and my health system,” she says, “now I want that change to ripple out.”
Cohort Milestones
In 2025, we deepened our impact in four locations:
Global
In 2015, HEAL started as what we now refer to as our Global HEAL Program, a sustainable alternative to the traditional global health model. Instead of short-term service or “saviorship,” HEAL built a fellowship grounded in solidarity, pairing U.S. physicians with healthcare workers already serving resource-denied communities around the world. By learning directly from local health workers, U.S. physicians gain an understanding of the cultural and systemic realities shaping care. By supporting local healthcare workers, they are able to build local health systems’ capacity to improve healthcare quality and access long after they complete their fellowship. Over one to two years, U.S. physicians rotate between a U.S. partner site and an international site. All fellows stay connected through HEAL’s gatherings, mentorship, and trainings. This year, we’ve continued to see powerful exchanges across borders: healthcare workers from northern Rwanda and Navajo Nation sharing strategies for sustaining their own well-being while caring for their communities; fellows from Nepal and Navajo Nation collaborating on how to strengthen access to mental healthcare in their communities. Why is this critical? These kinds of relationships simply don’t happen without HEAL. Yet they are essential for retaining committed healthcare workers who drive change in underserved communities. As the Global HEAL Program sunsets with its final incoming cohort in 2025, we celebrate the community, partnerships, and trust it has built that continue to shape HEAL’s programs today.
205
Healthcare workers have graduated from the Global HEAL Program
“HEAL has been nothing short of transformative, and I am sincerely thankful for the warm welcome and the wealth of learning it offered. I especially value the opportunity to participate in a panel discussion, where I could share my leadership journey and learn from others.”
Aimable Uwimana | Community Health and Social Medicine Lecturer | 2025 Global Fellow
California, U.S.
In the aftermath of COVID, HEAL wanted to meet the unmet healthcare needs of resource-denied communities in our own state of California, an idea supported by the Regents of the University of California. The California HEAL Program was shaped by local alumni and partners to build off existing investments in the healthcare workforce pathway and fill the primary care gaps in rural areas of the state. In 2025 the program launched in San Diego, Fresno, and the Inland Empire, leveraging HEAL’s strong partnerships with healthcare workers and sites serving underserved communities in those regions, with the vision to expand our partnerships across the state. The program brings together interprofessional health workers who are already embedded in the community with physicians connected to the region, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration and solidarity. Why is this critical? To protect against the voyeurism often seen in global health, the California HEAL Program works alongside and supports all cadres of local health professionals in our own backyard to strengthen access to quality care.
26
HEAL Fellows have served resource-denied communities in California over
9
years of partnerships
“This work is hard, but finding solace and solidarity in [HEAL’s] meetings was incredibly empowering and helps invigorate me to continue doing this work. ”
Jennifer Romo | Physician | 2025 California Social Medicine Fellow
Navajo & Zuni Nations
Since the advent of our partnership with health centers and healthcare workers in the Southwest United States over a decade ago, HEAL has 119 alumni who served Indigenous communities. Dr. Adriann Begay, one of those alumni, recognized the major impact of nursing shortages on her community and worked with HEAL alumni and staff to create the Southwest Leadership Program. The program provides nurses serving Indigenous communities with culturally relevant leadership training and mentorship to improve their resilience and capacity to care for their community. In 2025, HEAL welcomed our second cohort of nurses alongside our 2025 California and Global HEAL Fellows. Highlights from the program’s monthly learning sessions include former Navajo Nation President, Jonathan Nez, presenting on Leadership and Advocacy, and the National Native Children’s Trauma Center presenting on Secondary Traumatic Stress. Why is this critical? With Indigenous people making up only 0.5% of registered nurses in the US, creating a space run by native healthcare professionals for nurses serving native communities doesn’t happen enough in healthcare. This program creates a safe space for fellows to discuss their personal and professional challenges, seek support, and combat burnout so they can continue their work for the long haul.
119
HEAL Fellows have served resource-denied communities in Navajo and Zuni Nations over
10
years of partnerships
“As a result of the National Native Children’s Trauma Center’s session, I will place greater emphasis on holistic patient care by ensuring that assessments go beyond physical symptoms to include cultural, emotional, and social factors.”
Southwest Leadership Fellow
Malawi
Over the decade of partnership with HEAL, the Malawi Ministry of Health saw that HEAL Fellows developed more resilience and capacity to improve the health of their communities. At the same time, many African fellows were unjustly denied a visa for HEAL’s US-based trainings. To address these structural barriers and to serve more fellows, HEAL, Partners in Health, Malawi (Abwenzi Pa Za Umoyo), and the Malawi Ministry of Health created the Malawi HEAL Leadership Program. Because the program is based in the country, all fellows can participate and come together regularly to reflect, learn, and collaborate on ways they can improve healthcare access and quality in their communities. Alumni from Nepal, Uganda, Liberia, and Rwanda joined the kick-off training for our first Malawi Leadership Cohort in 2025, engaging in discussion on how they are promoting health equity in their home communities. Over the course of their year-long fellowship, Malawi Leadership Fellows will continue to build relationships locally and globally, engage in regular mentorship, and receive support to meet their professional goals. Why is this critical? As Malawi’s Ministry of Health brings primary care clinics closer to rural communities, the Malawi Leadership Program is directly improving the capacity of those clinics by connecting, training, and mentoring the clinical staff.
22
HEAL Fellows have served resource-denied communities in Malawi over
10
years of partnerships
“Being a HEAL Fellow has given me a strong sense of belonging because I feel part of a bigger community of healthcare workers facing similar challenges yet working towards similar goals.”
Tikhale Singano | Clinical Officer | 2025 Malawi Leadership Fellow
Mexico
One of HEAL’s first partner sites back in 2015, Partners in Health, Mexico (Compañeros en Salud), alumni advocated to make HEAL accessible to their colleagues who didn’t speak English. The strong alumni network partnered with HEAL to develop the Mexico Leadership Program, providing Spanish-speaking healthcare workers in rural Chiapas, Mexico, with the culturally grounded training, mentorship, and peer support to lead positive change from within their communities. After pausing the program for a year due to rising cartel violence, in 2025, we welcomed our second Mexico Leadership Cohort of Spanish-speaking healthcare workers, including social workers, nurses, and community health workers. Why is this critical? The Mexico Leadership Program focuses on government-employed healthcare workers to build the capacity of a sustainable, state-run system that improves communities’ access to healthcare.
28
HEAL Fellows have served resource-denied communities in Mexico over
10
years of partnerships
“Recordé mi responsabilidad, mi poder y mi alcance personal y colectivo, reconecté conmigo, con mi linaje y con mi propósito.”
“I remembered my responsibility, my power, and my personal and collective reach; I reconnected with myself, my lineage, and my purpose.”
Cristina Araceli Torres Carrera | Maternal Home Nurse Supervisor | 2025 Mexico Leadership Fellow
Connecting Our Community
As we deepen our roots and impact through the local cohort model, this year, HEAL continued to actively connect our community through:
- A US-based Global Health Training bringing together our California, Southwest, and Global fellows to learn alongside and from one another over a one-week intensive curriculum.
- Global alumni participating in local cohort gatherings in Mexico and Malawi to bring in their global experience to each cohort’s local health discussions.
- Alumni-led monthly collaboration calls where alumni and fellows from across the world and across cadre discuss what they’re doing to address health disparities in their communities. These include Spanish/English interpretation, so all fellows and alumni can participate in these conversations.
- Alumni and fellow-led retreats that bring together the HEAL community in a region for curriculum sessions, project collaboration, future programming planning, and community building.
When healthcare workers build a global perspective to address local healthcare needs, they feel less alone in the work and co-create ways to push for long-term health improvements for their communities.
Looking Forward
Relentless incrementalism—the strategy of making small, consistent, and persistent changes over time to achieve significant and lasting results—has always been a value of HEAL. This year, it took center stage. The resilience and collective support of the HEAL community fill us with optimism, especially during these times. In this moment where so much is being destroyed, local leaders can [re]build health systems that best serve communities. Learning from HEAL’s decade of experience, we plan to focus deeply on locally adapted and led HEAL leadership cohorts, while keeping them connected with a vibrant global community.
The next year will continue to be challenging. In times of turmoil in global health from USAID closure, financial insecurity, and dramatic threats to democracy and social protection in the US, HEAL will double down on our mission by:
- Welcoming our 3rd cohort of Southwest Leadership Fellows
- Launching our 2nd California HEAL Cohort
- Expanding our opportunities for fellows and alumni to collaborate and connect across cohorts, deepening the solidarity of the HEAL community
In a time of injustice and chaos, HEAL Fellows keep us going in this work. We know those most proximal to preventable suffering and death have the best insight and most drive to make change. When they’re given the connection, training, and mentorship to take a step back and reflect, they co-create ways to address the most pressing health inequities in the United States and across the globe.
PARTNERS
We partner with healthcare institutions and local governments to deliver quality care to resource-denied communities around the world. Our partners set the agenda for how HEAL can support and strengthen healthcare access and quality in their communities. Active HEAL partners this year include:
Domestic
Chinle, Gallup, Shiprock, Zuni New Mexico/Arizona
Tucson, Arizona
Fort Defiance, Arizona
Tucson, Arizona
Ganado, Arizona
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Riverside, California
Inland Empire, California
San Diego, California
San Diego, California
San Diego, California
San Francisco, California
Fresno, California
Fresno, California
Fresno, California
Fresno, California
International
Neno, Malawi
Chiapas, Mexico
Dhulikhel, Nepal
Monrovia, Liberia
Malawi
Mbale, Uganda
Rwanda
Rwinkwavu, Rwanda
We’d like to thank the deans of UC San Francisco, UC Riverside, and UC San Diego for supporting our California HEAL Program in our inaugural year. We’d also like to thank our diverse network of supporters, old and new, who’ve championed our vision of supported healthcare workers and accessible healthcare for all.
Major Funders
Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust, Inc.
Resnik Family Foundation
Stuart & Jesse Abelson Foundation
2025 FINANCES
