During the ten years Dr. Vera Cordeiro Rio spent working in the pediatric wing of a Brazilian hospital, she often saw the same children hospitalized over and over again. In order to help them, she realized she would have to address the root causes of the poverty in which they lived. In this audio interview with host Sheela Sethuraman, Cordeiro Rio talks about how she sought to do this by founding Renascer, a health and social service provider that she is franchising and replicating across Brazil and beyond. She also discusses how she uses for-profit business and social outreach to stabilize funding.
Vera Cordeiro Rio was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and graduated in 1975 as a medical doctor. She worked at Hospital da Lagoa, Rio de Janeiro, from 1978 until 1998. In 1991, Cordeiro Rio founded Associação Saúde Criança Renascer (ASCR) with the purpose of structuring the families of less privileged children, those suffering with chronic or acute illness, and those released from the Hospital da Lagoa, helping them to find family self-sustainability. Cordeiro Rio was elected an Ashoka fellow in 1992, an Avina leader in 2000, a Schwab Social Entrepreneur in 2001, and a board member of Path (A Catalyst for Global Health) in May 2005. She also has been on Ashoka´s board of directors since 2006.
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This free podcast is from our Design For Change series.
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