The Doctor on a Mission to Build a Healthier South Sudan | Yohanis Riek | TED

00:03I’m Yohanis Riek, I'm a doctor and a social entrepreneur based and working in South Sudan. When I was growing up in my village, my future was to be a cattle keeper. Through being someone mobile, the nomadic culture, we became adaptive to other new culture that we learn as we migrate.

00:22And that experience enabled me to connect with a lot of other people. And so future kept changing based on the new life I was experiencing. The future was, you know, to be someone successful, someone who can be able to help that community. But when I was around 14 or 15 years, I don't know exact age, but by estimation, at that time, I was conscripted into the army forcefully.

00:47And that's how I became a child soldier. The cost of that civil war was being felt by everybody. So the regional neighbors decided to bring the two warring parties together for negotiation, which led to the peace agreement in 2005. And that was supported by the United States government.

01:10And I was sponsored by the government to go to school. When the negotiation started, the first thing first was to demobilize child soldiers from the army, and the immediate activities to do after demobilization were go to school. The first immediate motivation for me to become a doctor was seeing my family members die because of diseases that could be treated.

01:33My dad, particularly my sister, who was young at the time, you know, motivated me, when I learned about school, to study something that can help fight the disease burden in my community. I was the first to go to school in my family, and also the first to become a doctor.

01:51And not only my immediate family, but in my community. 2009 was my first year at university, and that's when I also started my nonprofit organization called Yo' Care South Sudan. Yo' Care South Sudan is a non-profit health care organization that is focused on infectious disease control and management, as well as the primary-care part of the health system.

02:14Through static health facilities and also through mobile medical teams that go to communities that are far away from our health facilities, where the gaps are huge and people continue to die every day. For the last 17 years, we've had many successes.

02:31We are proud that we have saved lives. When we vaccinate children, children are able to go to school and they are able to become an important member of society. There are children that have gone to school now. If we did not do that vaccination, maybe they would have died from those childhood diseases that are preventable.

02:50We understand that as an organization, we cannot be able to do everything by ourselves, so we help communities organize themselves. The people who come to our health facilities, we train them. Many patients that we observed became service providers themselves.

03:06One of our patients, called Lillian, later on became a peer navigator. Now she is able to identify people who are also suffering and referring them to the health centers for them to come for testing and also to come to get their medication, as well as delivering the training, delivering medical services to the people who cannot access medical facilities.

03:30People must be able to take charge of their own health. Luckily, our name, Yo' Care, means the care we provide is yours. Wherever we work, we organize the community. We train them so they can take charge of the future. Yo' Care focuses on long-term health solutions because we understand that health is not just an immediate need, it's a long-term need.

03:53And because of that, some of the solutions we provide have been funded by external donors such as USAID or US government. And when the current US government came into power, we got an abrupt notification. "Tomorrow, we suspend all activities."

04:10So that had the immediate effect on us. The first immediate effect was on the patients. Before this happened, we had more than 60,000 people that were relying on our medical services. As of now, we are supporting 32,000. Thousands of communities are not able to access basic health care services.

04:33And also from having eight health facilities that were directly supporting to only two facilities right now that we are supporting. Our manpower reduced from 53 to only eight essential staff. Now when that suddenly cut, they ask us, "Where do we go?"

04:54"Where do we go?" Patients are also asking us, "Where do we go? Why did you cut this?" Didn't allow us time to prepare to close. It didn't allow us time to look for other financing alternatives. That threatens the very existence of the organization.

05:11The most important thing to invest in is the people. There is no country without people in the first place. We are the youngest nation in the world right now. In 2011, South Sudan became an independent country. Given that it's not part of that global community yet in terms of technology, in terms of media, in terms of other connectedness, we feel neglected.

05:36We have ongoing conflict, we have natural, climate issues. Our voices are not being heard. My hope for the future, first, as a doctor, is a healthy society. And that is what we're working for. Because when the community is stable, when society is stable, we will contribute meaningfully to the world and people will know us for positive things instead of being known for conflict and suffering.

06:01Having a new country is just like when you have a new home. You just bought your new house, you are very excited, you are very happy. You finally have something you can call home. And that is the experience that we have as a nation. Even if we are in crisis, protracted crisis, persistent crisis, we are very happy that -- personally, I'm very proud that I have a country because I believe one day, through the contribution I'm making or through the contributions of others, we will be better despite the challenges we are currently facing.