Our Story

Since 2009, we’ve been building a diverse community of health equity leaders, 1000+ strong and counting.

2009

Inspired by UNAIDS Executive Director Dr. Peter Piot’s clarion call to be relentless in the fight for health equity, Barbara and Jenna Bush, Andrew Bentley, Charlie Hale, Dave Ryan, and Jonny Dorsey launch Global Health Corps with a mission to develop a generation of leaders committed to realizing health as a human right. They recruit 22 bold fellows to join our first cohort working in East and Southern Africa and the U.S.

Our first class wraps a transformative year, forming the very first members of our alumni community which will forever be defined by their legendary resilience, collaboration, and hustle. We launch our second cohort of 36 young leaders, including architects, journalists, engineers, data gurus, and finance analysts.

2010

2011

We move into our first official office in New York City and hire our first in-country Program Managers in Malawi, Rwanda, Uganda, and the U.S. Our third annual Training Institute is held at Yale University for the first time.

We expand to Zambia, secure partnerships with government agencies in each of our placement countries, and adapt and innovate our processes in response to growing demand from applicants for fellowship openings and from organizations for fellows.

2012

2013

After working with four cohorts of fellows, Partners In Health Co-founder Paul Farmer declares that “GHC alumni have unparalleled leadership potential.” We launch alumni chapters as our growing community continues to seek opportunities collaborate and impact health systems long beyond the fellowship.

Our community grows to 500+ and we celebrate our fifth birthday. We receive a record high 4,771 applications for the 2015-2016 fellowship cohort, and host our first-ever alumni summit in Uganda, bringing together over 100 young leaders from across East Africa to strengthen their connections and amplify their impact.

2014

2015

Rwandan President Paul Kagame addresses our sixth fellow cohort, urging them to be steadfast and bold in their leadership journeys. Our movement gains momentum, landing press coverage in The New York Times, Fast Company, and the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

The GHC team triples in size with new hires including a handful of alumni to lead the way as we build out programming to support our young leaders to make an impact far beyond the fellowship year. Our co-founder and CEO Barbara Bush declares that “healthcare should not be political” in Business Insider.

2016

2017

GHC fellows and alumni continue to rise as leaders, speaking in 27 cities around the world and getting published in outlets including Devex, AllAfrica, and The Lancet. We launch partnerships with McKinsey Academy, Friends of the Global Fight, and the Churches Health Association of Zambia to hone their management and advocacy skills.

GHC wins the $1,000,000 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. Our community grows to 1,000+ strong with our tenth cohort, and we roll out a customized digital platform to foster connection and collaboration on cutting edge health projects.

2018

2019

We launch our second strategic plan with CEO Heather Anderson at the helm. We celebrate our 10 year anniversary and look ahead to another decade of investing in young changemakers to drive our progress towards health equity. The future is bright!

Global travel grinds to a halt and uncertainty swirls as COVID-19 hits the world, closely followed by a long-overdue global racial justice uprising. Against this backdrop, the GHC community of leaders adapt, shore up grit and resilience, lean on each other, as they rise to meet their communities’ needs, from preventing gender-based violence and strengthening medical supply chains to distributing PPE and food and advocating for vaccine equity.

2020

2021

As the pandemic rages on, vaccines begin to deliver some hope for recovery. Yet their inequitable distribution underscores how deeply the legacies of colonialism and racism impact global health today. GHC leaders continue working to deliver immunizations and medicines, manage health interventions, and raise their voices to disrupt the status quo at this pivotal juncture in history.