| Mission: to serve those who suffer from
disasters, tragedies and losses with love and compassion.
Vision: The illumination of the world with compassionate
volunteerism and humanitarianism without borders. A world
filled with Peace, Love and Joy.
Dr. Elizabeth A. Garcia-Gray is a double board certified
child and adult psychiatrist who is currently the chief medical
officer of the child psychiatric services of Seven Counties
Services, Inc. in Louisville, Kentucky, one of the largest comprehensive mental health non-profit
organizations in the nation.
Dr. Garcia-Gray is a multi-cultural (Filipino, Spanish, Chinese)
physician who finished her medical school in Spain (University of
Zaragoza, Spain) and her residency training and child psychiatry
fellowship in the University of Louisville in Kentucky. She has
served as medical director for the child and adolescent units in
Charter Hospital and then as medical director of the child and
adolescent unit and chief of medical staff in Ten Broeck Hospital.
Dr. Garcia-Gray helped jumpstart those in-patient programs. She also
served as the first medical director in mission-focused programs
like the Lighthouse Adolescent Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation
Center and School-based Services. She helped co-found Safe Harbor -
to help the global refugees in her community by facilitating the
interweaving of education, resources, services for the refugees.
Volunteer Missions:
1. Global humanitarian and intensive short-term medical missions and disaster relief :
Disaster relief work in Thailand for tsunami affected families with
Global Service Corps; Katrina hurricane relief work in Houston,
Texas, the first week the evacuees from New Orleans were there;
Disaster relief work for the Mt. Pinatubo volcanic eruption in the
Philippines; medical mission in Costa Rica with the Foundation of
International Medical Relief for Children (FIMRC); Spent a few days in Uganda with isolated AIDS patients and needs assessment of
orphaned children of AIDS with Dr. Dickson Ssenoga and Rural Health
Care Foundation staff; visited displaced children and families in
Gulu; Missions in Chad and Zimbabwe.
2. Helped set up the first McGuire water purifier in Mubende,
Uganda. Each purifier is able to serve 5 to 10,000 people in a
community.
3. Raising awareness through media and international networks the
significance of the following issues: clean and safe water for the
world, refugees, de-stigmatization of mental illness, the
marginalized and incarcerated; supporting those who suffer
disasters, tragedies and losses, orphaned children of AIDS.
4. Motivated the formation of the annual Seven Counties Services,
Inc. Talentfest to support the National Alliance for the Mentally
Ill in Louisville, Kentucky during mental health awareness week.
This is to uplift the de-stigmatization of mental illness and to
encourage the strengths-based approach in the care of those with
mental health problems through talents, music and arts.
Recently Dr. Garcia-Gray published a coffee table book entitled :
YOUR COMPASSIONATE NATURE" with photographs of serene nature in the
midst of disaster, mission work, and times of decompression.
The profits of the book will be used to buy McGuire water purifiers.
She will help set up another purifier in Uganda during an international
conference that she is helping co-organize with a grassroots NGO
Rural Health Care Foundation. The "Healthy and Safe Water for
the World" International Conference in July 2008 hopes to raise a
united mega-voice in eliminating the mortality from
waterborne illnesses (WDI).
Another book "THE COURAGE
TO ENCOURAGE" with best-selling author Byron Laursen will be published
this year. It is a memoir about disaster relief work and the
courage discovered in humanitarianism as well as in the everyday
people who encourage others in spite of their own sufferings. Byron Laursen served in
the Peace Corps.
The book
"UTMOST", with co-author Dr. Ashis Brahma is presently in the works.
Dr. Brahma is a humanitarian physician who cared for 26,000 Sudanese
refugees in the Oure Cassoni camp in Chad. He has been a dedicated
and inspiring speaker about the plight of the refugees.
On Giving: Healing comes through giving. From giving comes
inner peace. From inner peace comes more Love and Compassion. Give
the gift of You. Give with love.
|
