Jim Ansara has stayed busy throughout his retirement.
The founding father of Shawmut Design and Building, who retired from the agency in 2006, has leveraged his constructing expertise and connections to assist present state-of-the-art healthcare amenities in creating nations internationally.
The nonprofit that he co-founded, Construct Well being Worldwide, has designed, constructed and geared up over 200 areas throughout the Caribbean, Latin America and Africa. Primarily based in Beverly, Massachusetts, BHI works carefully with ministries of well being, companion organizations, native communities and staff to create world-class, sustainable amenities whereas overcoming the challenges inherent in working in resource-constrained areas.
This yr, BHI is likely one of the few worldwide organizations to have remained energetic in Haiti, supporting an all-Haitian staff that accomplished work on the nation’s largest photo voltaic power venture ever — guaranteeing that healthcare staff have the facility to proceed caring for sufferers, even amid political unrest.
Final month, Ansara was named a recipient of the 2025 AARP Function Prize award, which is introduced yearly to “extraordinary folks ages 50 and older who faucet into the facility of life expertise to construct a greater future for us all.” Function Prize awardees obtain $50,000 for his or her based nonprofit, in addition to a yr of devoted assist from AARP.
Right here, Ansara talks with Building Dive concerning the challenges of designing and constructing healthcare amenities internationally.
This interview has been edited for brevity and readability.
CONSTRUCTION DIVE: Why did you create BHI?
JIM ANSARA: BHI was formally based in 2014, however the story begins a number of years earlier. In 2006, I had not too long ago retired from Shawmut Design & Building, which I based within the larger Boston space and ran for over 30 years. Following my retirement, I started volunteering with Companions In Well being, a worldwide well being group that had executed large work in Haiti. It was by means of PIH that I met international well being knowledgeable Dr. David Walton, who in the end co-founded BHI.
PIH was working to construct a 100-bed neighborhood hospital in Mirebalais, Haiti, a small metropolis 60 kilometers north of Port-au-Prince. David and I practically had the design completed when the January 2010 earthquake struck Haiti, destroying as much as 70% of the nation’s present healthcare infrastructure, together with its largest hospital, in Port-au-Prince.
In response, the Haitian Ministry of Well being requested us to alter our plans, and our 100-bed hospital turned a 300-bed nationwide educating hospital, the Hôpital Universitaire de Mirebalais, which was inbuilt simply over two years.
Via that have, I acknowledged the essential want for designing, constructing and sustaining healthcare amenities around the globe, notably in areas the place it may be extremely onerous to entry the instruments and assets we regularly take without any consideration within the international north. BHI has constructed a mannequin that facilities native companions and staff, and that prioritizes innovation and collaboration to beat limitations.
Jim Ansara and logistics supervisor Charles Jenkins Bartholomew stand in entrance of the jobsite for the Maternal Heart of Excellence in Sierra Leone.
Permission granted by BHI
BHI’s staff is made up of over 130 architects, engineers, international well being leaders and different people based mostly all through the world.
What forms of tasks does it sponsor?
BHI is a design-and-build nonprofit that delivers high-quality, dignified and equitable healthcare options in low-resource settings all through the world. We companion with nonprofit organizations and native governments to offer structure, engineering, development, amenities upkeep and coaching providers that strengthen healthcare infrastructure and programs.
BHI’s worldwide staff works particularly in low- and middle-income nations. We tackle jobs that usually nobody else desires, and we construct in a number of the most resource-constrained areas of the world.
Our tasks vary from designing and constructing maternal and new child healthcare providers, together with the longer term 166-bed Maternal Heart of Excellence in Koidu, Sierra Leone, which is anticipated to vastly lower maternal mortality.
Following the emergence of COVID-19, we labored to strengthen healthcare programs all through sub-Saharan Africa by means of assessing and repairing damaged down oxygen vegetation, in addition to offering schooling and coaching to native technicians and hospital administration to make sure that their vegetation proceed to run sustainably.
Lastly, we deal with enabling renewable power programs, particularly in nations like Haiti the place gasoline shortages and rising prices can inhibit hospitals from operating their operations easily. We simply completed upgrading and putting in 1,800 photo voltaic panels at our first venture, which is able to cut back 2,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions yearly.
How have you ever been in a position to keep engaged on the bottom in Haiti even with the present political uncertainty within the nation?
BHI started in Haiti, and now we have deep roots within the nation. Our long-term dedication to hiring native Haitian staff has enabled us to stay within the nation, even when so many different organizations have left.
We’ve got over 40 Haitian staff members who proceed to advance our in-country tasks — working day by day to beat provide chain and logistical challenges, energy outages, gasoline shortages, political uncertainty and extra. We stay dedicated to the communities the place we design and construct essential infrastructure, whereas additionally exercising applicable warning, prioritizing security and remaining in shut contact with all staff members about circumstances on the bottom.
Why do you employ native labor?
From our earliest days, BHI has prioritized equipping and empowering native workforces. This can be a extra sustainable mannequin long run, and that manner, we are able to be sure that information stays throughout the neighborhood.
On the similar time, volunteers and consultants from the US and different nations are essential to supporting and coaching native staff. Within the early days of our work in Haiti, volunteers from the US and the Dominican Republic helped prepare Haitian staff, together with electricians, plumbers, carpenters and different trades. Now, these staff are coaching the subsequent technology of expert staff members in Haiti.
We nonetheless encourage business and in-kind companions to collaborate with us to assist native staff; for instance, one in all our main companions, Laticrete, not too long ago despatched a volunteer to assist putting in hospital flooring at our maternal middle venture in Sierra Leone.
Why is the development of healthcare buildings in creating nations so necessary?
Healthcare providers require healthcare infrastructure. With out the employees and house to function a clinic, equitable healthcare entry stays out of attain for too many individuals.
We imagine in well being fairness, or the concept that each individual ought to have accessible and dignified care, no matter their capability to pay or geographical circumstances. By offering structure, engineering and development providers to amenities upkeep and analysis improvement, our purpose is to strengthen healthcare infrastructure and healthcare programs.
Whereas BHI’s worldwide staff is made up of consultants, we’re always studying. Supplies and assets which can be accessible in Haiti will not be accessible in Sierra Leone and vice versa. We by no means go right into a venture assuming that we all know the whole lot, and we intention to fulfill the distinctive wants of each companion.
We discover that we are able to obtain the best affect — and assist present the very best high quality of care — once we merge our expertise working in useful resource constrained environments with the information of native companions.
