Celebrating the First Class of REAL Award winners

By Mary Beth Powers, Save the Children

Note: This blog was originally posted on the Impatient Optimists blog

Yetagesu Alema, a frontline health worker, is standing in front of the Germana Gale Health Post in Ethiopia. Photo courtesy: Save the Children

As we drove down a dusty road in Northern Ethiopia en route to our celebration for Tirhas, the REAL Award winner from Ethiopia, I was expecting a decent turnout for this dedicated health extension worker, perhaps her family members and a few close friends. I was floored by the reality: throngs of people lining both sides of the street as we approached the hotel, holding up signs with Tirhas' photo on them, cheering as though we were part of the President’s inaugural parade.

This type of fanfare is what I had hoped to see for every health worker as we conceptualized the REAL Awards, but admittedly, I was doubtful that it would actually come to pass. Health workers, after all, are often unsung heroes, performing their lifesaving work with dedication, but also humility.

The REAL Awards was our way to help shift that paradigm. We wanted to create an awards platform that celebrated the work of these countless men and women, in the same vein as the myriad award shows we have for athletes, actors and musicians. Of course, I shouldn't have been surprised that, upon selecting our first-year winners, a common response I heard was: "While I'm incredibly honored, I don't really know why I was chosen; for me, I was just doing my job."

The spotlight is not in most health workers' comfort zone. But we wanted to give them a chance, if only for one day, to feel like celebrities. That's why we flew our US winners to Washington, DC to recognize them for the incredible work they do day in and out. Well, most of them anyway. Dr. Joseph Tate, an Atlanta-based obstetrician and our winner in the newborn and mother care category, respectfully declined our offer to come because he didn’t want to be away from his patients for that long. Did I mention health workers were dedicated?

So in the end, eight out of our nine US winners came. Besides attending a reception in their honor, they also got the chance to meet their Member of Congress, get their picture taken on the steps of the Capitol Building, and, most importantly, advocate on behalf of their health worker peers. But it will take more than a few congressional meetings to get health workers around the world the support they need to continue saving lives. One way you can help is by signing this resolution, introduced by Reps. Nita Lowey (D-NY) and Ander Crenshaw (R-FL), which calls for American leadership to continue to build a capable health workforce.

And while we weren’t able to give all 60 million health workers in the world a REAL Award, I do hope you take the time to thank the health workers in your life. They may not be among our honorees this year, but they still deserve our appreciation.