We have exciting news: Tsiry Endor Rakoto joined CT Health as the new program officer.
As part of our grantmaking team, Tsiry will oversee a portfolio of grants and work with grantees and potential grantees.
She brings lots of experience in the nonprofit sector and has worked with communities in Africa, Eurasia, Latin America, and the U.S. Most recently, she served as the grants administrator at the Ms. Foundation for Women and as an operations officer for American Friends of Jamaica.
To help introduce Tsiry, we asked her a few questions.
What makes you excited about being part of CT Health?
I’m thrilled to join the CT Health team and have the opportunity to address health issues in communities of color in Connecticut with a systems-change lens. Many organizations in the nonprofit world see “bridging the gap” as a core vision and to me, systems change takes this to the next level. Grantmaking links communities to resources that would help improve their wellbeing, and systems change explores solutions that come from examining why and how access has been a problem to begin with. To me, this is the type of bridge building that places communities in the driver’s seat where they have a say in what works best.
What experiences will inform your work here?
I feel that my advocacy work at the United Nations, my experience working with implementing partners in humanitarian, health care, and sustainable community development projects, as well as my work in grants management will be important resources that will inform for my work as a program officer with the CT Health Foundation.
What do you hope to learn in this role?
I look forward to learning more about the landscape of health systems change and social justice in Connecticut. And just as I bring my experience and my learnings to support CT Health’s mission, I am eager to draw from the knowledge, experience and expertise the CT Health community has acquired from its many years of service.