Changing the Rural Landscape

Where there is no vision, the people perish. An ancient proverb

The statistics are staggering and honestly hard to fully digest:

• High illiteracy rates. 
• Poor test scores. 
• Low educational attainment. 
• Outward migration. 
• Generational poverty. 
• Health disparities. 
• Poor health outcomes. 
• Short life spans. 
• Inequality. 
• Lack of diversity. 
• Lack of opportunity. 

I could go on and on. 

So often in rural, the need outweighs the resource. Sure, it may help develop compelling need assessments in competitive grant applications, but that is where the benefit ends. 

Some days I want to scream at the top of my lungs, 

Where are the innovators? 

The dreamers? 

The problem solvers? 

The troubleshooters? 

Where are the visionaries we need to truly change the rural reality?

Early in my career, I lived in post-war Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina. We rebuilt broken infrastructure, riddled with the pock marks of fallen bombs and shattered dreams. Several years later I returned home to the rural U.S., resigned to the fact that I would have to move to urban America to find a similar level of need and opportunity. I was grossly misinformed. 

“Have you considered staying here and working in rural health?” Jim (perhaps an angelic guide) proposed over lunch only weeks upon my return home. 

“Not really,” I responded. 

“Well, I have this federal rural health outreach grant that was just funded that needs someone just like you to help lead. The project desperately needs someone that can see opportunity where others simply see void,” he injected. 

Interesting, I thought to myself. To be honest, I hadn’t considered rural health as an avenue to pour my energy and vision. And yet, there could not have been a better fit where passion met need. I found my home in rural health and have no plans to ever leave.

Here’s the thing. There aren’t enough of us. And we may be so overstretched that we aren’t communicating effectively enough to engage the next generation of rural health champions and leaders. 

So I’ll take this opportunity to say it loud and clear: 

We want you. 

We need you. 

Your passion. 

Your zeal. 

Your ideas. 

Your dreams. 

Your desire to make the world a better place. 

Rural needs you. 

See, now you can’t say you haven’t heard the call to rural transformation. 

Sincerely, 

Your friends in rural health (specifically, the one that speaks Bosnian fluently and chooses to serve & live in rural America)