Susie Rheault Releases New Memoir

As a Special Advisor for the Clinton Foundation Health Access Initiative, Susie Rheault spent five years working throughout sub-Saharan Africa. But after a trip with her husband to a small rural village in Tanzania, the couple now lives there four months out of the year to continue the work they started there after a serendipitous encounter with a group of orphans.

As she recounts in her new book, My Wild and Precious Life: A Memoir of Africa [Bush Baby Press, September 10, 2019, ISBN: 9780578500959], her work throughout sub-Saharan Africa instilled a desire in her to do more. She longed to affiliate herself with a project where she could see the results over time and build relationships in a small village.

While searching for such a need with her husband, they stumbled on the grim and early incarnation of an orphanage housing nine children in Nshupu, Tanzania. Taken aback by the gray, spare enclave that housed the children, the couple knew this was where they could offer their help. Soon after, they met and formed an alliance with two Tanzanian educators, giving birth to the Precious Project.

As she explains, the project was an uphill battle, "We had never run an orphanage, we didn't speak Swahili, and we had never done any fund-raising. We wanted to do some good in Africa, and so we jumped in with both feet. I was convinced that somehow my experience crisscrossing the continent would inoculate us from making the most egregious mistakes, but that was not true. We spent the next years on a roller coaster of hope and hard learnings. We would be mildly euphoric with a sense of renewed purpose in life, and we would be regularly humbled by the undertow of desperation that poverty engenders."

But their hard work paid off. Precious Project started with those nine orphans in a two-room cement bunker in 2011. Now in 2019, the project has grown to include a new home for 21 children, a 10-room primary school, a student body of 350 students, a working organic farm, a library, a community/dining hall, a dorm, and two women's empowerment groups.

SUSIE RHEAULT is a psychologist with a specialization in organizational development and leadership effectiveness. For the past 30 years she has worked with senior executives across the private and public sector globally. Since 2007, Susie has been a Special Advisor for the Clinton Foundation Health Access Initiative supporting field offices in Ethiopia, Tanzania, Malawi, Lesotho and Swaziland. In each of these countries, she has trained local staff to accelerate HIV testing and treatment uptake using a grassroots team-based approach. She also coached senior leaders to enhance their effectiveness and achieve their goals. In 2011, she and her husband Gil Williams joined forces with Tanzanian schoolteachers, William and Sarah Modest, to launch Precious Project. Susie is deeply committed to improving the lives of the most vulnerable children, women and community members in Nshupu, Tanzania, where she and Gil live for half the year.

Learn more about My Wild and Precious Life at www.preciousproject.org and connect with Susie on LinkedIn.

My Wild and Precious Life is available on Amazon and everywhere books are sold.

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