by Deanna Byck, SC.D., MPH, Chair of One Heart World
images by Surya Bhatta & Betty Wong
Arlene Samen
A force of nature.
Her healing career began in 1977 as a Nurse Practitioner in high-risk obstetrics. Today, she is the Founder and President of One Heart Worldwide, a501(c)(3) registered non-profit organization that strives to eradicate preventable pregnancy and childbirth-related deaths in the most remote areas of the world.
Arlene has lived through violent political uprisings, major earthquakes, floods, being held at gunpoint, government interference, and people who tried to take her organization away from her. Yet, her cause is so deeply engraved on her heart, she continues to lead her team of medical foot soldiers to “fight a cause that is greater than each of us.”
And fight she has. The result has been a dramatic shift in the maternal and infant mortality rates in remote regions of the world with little or no access to healthcare. Under Arlene’s leadership, One Heart Worldwide has built and deployed fully equipped birthing centers, trained providers in maternal care, and empowered women in villages to create sustainable change from within their communities, saving thousands of lives in the process.
When you get a personal request from the Dalai Lama, what are you going to say? ‘No, I’m busy’? Or are you just going to do it?
Arlene Samen
Before One Heart Worldwide, the statistics in the south Asian country of Nepal were startling: every hour, two Nepali newborns took their final breaths; every eight hours, a Nepali woman died of preventable complications of pregnancy or childbirth. For every three women per 100,000 live births who die during childbirth in the Netherlands, 250 would die in Nepal. Under Arlene’s leadership, One Heart has reduced maternal mortality to almost ZERO – better than the United States!
If you had asked Arlene back in 1977 if she would ever consider running a non-profit in some of the most remote regions in the world, she probably would have laughed. But through her work volunteering with Interplast, an organization that provided life-changing surgeries to remote areas, she gained an audience with none other than the Dalai Lama himself.
She asked him, “I just want to know, what can I do to help?” He responded by requesting her help in Tibet to prevent women and children dying from childbirth. His own mother had birthed 16 children, half of whom died. Initially, Arlene didn’t seriously consider the idea due to logistics – she thought it might be too idealistic. Truthfully, she didn’t even know where to begin. But when he contacted her again, he simply said, “On the path of service, all doors will open.”
“One Heart Tibet” was born from that conversation. As Arlene explains, “When you get a personal request from the Dalai Lama, what are you going to say? ‘No,I’m busy’? Or are you just going to do it? So off I went.”
With $5,000 in funding from Morris Travel, Arlene began to raise money. From there it seemed to take on a life of its own. Since its inception, One Heart has created self-sustaining projects in Tibet and the Copper Canyon area of Mexico. Finally, in 2010, the organization landed in Nepal where the project has grown exponentially.
Arlene lives her life to her fullest potential by exercising, eating healthy, and surrounding herself with people who help her stick to her core values of being ethical, honest, loving, kind and compassionate. She is in a loving and healthy relationship with Craig, a man who fully supports her in pursuing her dreams despite the travel and time those dreams demand. With this balance, she is even more able to get up and face the challenges of working in a developing country.
It took her a long time to understand how important it is to ask for help. “It truly takes a community because without my board, staff, Craig, my friends, and my family, there is no way I could have embarked on this journey,” she says. It takes a village.
I asked Arlene to share a pearl of wisdom, a mantra, or anything else she would say to women to inspire them to be the best they can be. She told me that anything is possible. She also told me there were many times in her life and career when she just wanted to give up. “I think the best pearl of wisdom I have given myself over the years is that it is okay to give up in the moment. Then get some rest and ask yourself, ‘are you really wanting to give up?’ Some days when I wake up, I look at the picture of His Holiness next to my bed and I say to him, ‘Hey, I’m giving up today, I will see what tomorrow brings.’ And a few minutes later I will always see things from a different perspective, and of course I keep going.”
When I tell Arlene she is an inspiration, she says, “I want to inspire every person I come in contact with because every person on this earth is looking to find happiness and looking for what to do to succeed and be a useful human being on the planet. I try to think about that with every single person I encounter. Maybe I can inspire them. Because for all of us, when we aren’t ‘suffering,’ we do better for ourselves and the planet.”
When I think of Arlene, the word “gratitude” comes to mind. It’s what she lives by. She is always grateful for her experiences, good or challenging. She is grateful that she gets to do the work, and she is also grateful for the suffering she experienced because letting go of that suffering has led to happiness.
Visit One Heart Worldwide
oneheartworldwide.org