9/11 Personal Evacuation Kit

After the 9/11 attacks, we were given by our employer, Scudder Investments, now Deutsche Bank, a personal evacuation kit.

The months after the attack, many of us working in NYC office buildings thought another attack was imminent. I felt a bit safer with my personal evacuation kit. With my trusty kit under my arm, I would get out of a burning building unscathed.

Twenty three years later, I still keep my kit next to my desk at work. Fortunately, I have never needed it.

Yesterday I finally opened it.

It’s funny what we think will keep us safe.

Leadership In Practice: Rebuilding A Nation After Trauma

Being a leader takes courage, patience, resilience and vision. Deogratias (Deo) Niyizonkiza, Founder and CEO, Village Health Works, has those leadership attributes and many more.

Deo was born into a loving yet poor family in Burundi. At the outbreak of the 1994 Hutu/Tutsi genocide in Rwanda/Burundi, Deo was attending medical school in Bujumbura, Burundi. One day a group of Hutus came to his dorm looking to kill any and all Tutsis. Deo hid under his bed.  After the perpetrators left, he fled to the woods of Burundi and Rwanda where he hid, while witnessing senseless slaughter, for six months. Continue reading “Leadership In Practice: Rebuilding A Nation After Trauma”

Undetectable: The New Face of AIDS

Undetectable, feature documentary by Jay Corcoran

Released: 2001
Length: 56 minutes
Producer: Jay Corcoran
Executive producer: Michael Roberts
Cinematographer: Jay Corcoran
Editor: George O’Donnell
Composer: Scott Killian

Undetectable is a feature documentary, following for three years six Boston residents on the new multi-drug therapies for HIV disease. The film examines the complex physical and psychological effects of the treatment on three women and three men of various ethnic and cultural backgrounds, and the importance of AIDS education and advocacy within both the gay and poor and minority communities. It was broadcast on PBS, Independent Lens.
Continue reading “Undetectable: The New Face of AIDS”