Global Health Advocate Delivers 2013 Rudin Lecture

Storied founder of Village Health Works Deogratias Niyizonkia delivered a college-wide lecture on October 23, 2013

Deogratias “Deo” Niyizonkiza gave the 2013 Rudin Lecture at MMC on Wednesday, October 23 to great acclaim.  Deo is the protagonist of MMC’s 2013 shared summer reading, Tracy Kidder’s New York Times bestseller Strength in What Remains.  Before the lecture, he met with a group of approximately 20 students in the Regina Peruggi Room, speaking informally about his traumatic past and his passion for the future.

Deo is the co-founder and executive director of Village Health Works, a grassroots non-profit organization providing compassionate, quality health care to vulnerable community members in rural Burundi. Strength In What Remains depicts Deo’s journey from being a medical student in Burundi, to a struggling immigrant in New York City, to an Ivy League-educated global health practitioner and doctor-in-training. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including a 2013 honorary degree from Williams College, the 2011 International Medal Award of St John’s University and the 2010 Women Refugee Commission’s Voices of Courage Award.

After surviving a massacre at a Burundian hospital, where he was a third-year medical school intern, Deo fled to New York in 1994, arriving penniless and without one word of English. Despite the hurdles— low-paying work as a grocery store delivery boy, illness, and homelessness— he eventually enrolled at Columbia University, where he received a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and philosophy. Of his experience, Deo has said: “Through such a personal journey, where survival seemed almost impossible, I arrived in New York to find friends who opened their doors for me: a stranger, homeless in a country where I did not know anyone and did not speak the language. Those friends taught me one crucial lesson: compassionate people have the power to change human misery.”

After graduating from Columbia, he attended the Harvard School of Public Health, where he met Dr. Paul Farmer and began working at the medical non-profit organization Partners In Health. He left Partners In Health to continue his medical education at Dartmouth Medical School.  Deo left medical school to address the urgent need for accessible, comprehensive, and modern health care in his home country. He founded Village Health Works (VHW) to build a more just, peaceful, and prosperous society in Burundi and beyond. Today, VHW serves the southern half of Burundi, including thousands of recently repatriated refugees from Tanzania. VHW operates the nation’s premier health center, agricultural development programs, educational services, women’s income-generating activities, and a number of other community development programs.

Deo’s lectures reflect upon the true meaning of social justice, humanity and the value of education – as well as the value of extraordinary kindness of strangers, without whom, he might not have such a story to tell. Audience members leave asking, “How can we help?” and “What can we do?”  Deo divides his time between the Village Health Works’ offices in New York and Burundi. In 2013, he was awarded the prestigious Eisenhower Medallion Award, in recognition of his “exceptional contribution to world peace and understanding.” He will be honored by the Dalai Lama in 2014 as an Un-sung Hero of Compassion.

The Jack and Lewis Rudin Distinguished Visiting Scholars Program was established at Marymount Manhattan in 2000 through a grant from The Rudin Foundation, Inc. Both Jack and the late Lewis Rudin have been well known throughout the New York community for the contributions they have made to living and working in New York and for their generous support of education, health, the arts and other civic, religious and cultural causes. Marymount Manhattan is honored to be the recipient of this special grant. This lecture builds upon the College’s commitment to academic excellence and its distinctive undergraduate programs in the liberal arts.

Published: October 29, 2013