Community Engagements and Partners

This page is dedicated to our community engagements and partners. We work with many programs locally, regionally, and nationally, to bring education, health services, health equity, and build relationships in underrepresented communities within DC.

The Rodham Institute partners with HealthAge USA to promote their program: The Friendship Bench. The mental health crisis in the U.S. has hit the the Black community especially hard.

Many are unable to afford help, face discrimination and institutionalized racism within the healthcare system, and struggle to find Black mental health providers.

Supported by HelpAge USA, a group of older people from historically Black neighborhoods in Washington, DC, set out to address the mental health crisis impacting their friends and neighbors by piloting a proven model for delivering community- based support: the Friendship Bench. Friendship Bench DC is an initiative piloted by HelpAge USA. It was inspired by psychiatrist Dr. Dixon Chibanda’s highly successful Friendship Bench model in Zimbabwe. With more than 100 successful, peer-reviewed studies, this evidence-based program trains older people ("Grandparents") to provide basic talk therapy to people of all ages on wooden “Friendship Benches” situated in safe spaces within communities — effectively addressing anxiety and depression.

The Black Coalition Against COVID (BCAC) is an organization that aims to provide trustworthy information to minority communities about COVID, support direct services in Washington DC as well as across the nation. Rodham Institute Founding Director, Dr. Gigi El-Bayoumi co-founded this organization in the midst of the COVID pandemic in April 2020. In 2021, the Rodham Institute appeared on the Black Coalition Against COVID Exemplar List for the creation of the ‘Don’t Miss Your Shot’ event, which administered COVID-19 vaccinations to residents in Ward 8. Partnering with Pennsylvania Avenue Baptist Church and the Far Southeast Family Strengthening Collaborative, the event brought together many residents and advocates in Ward 8 during a crucial time. The Rodham Institute conducted nine 90-minute sessions to educate staff and organizers, and these organizers went door to door to recruit residents of Ward 8 for the event. This was an event that was held exclusively for Ward 8 residents. Further, the Rodham institute and partners were able to secure non-traditional clinical spaces for administration, with the event being held at the Southeast Tennis and Learning Center, and Uber promotional codes were offered to residents to provide free transportation to and from the event. The third pillar of this event was leveraging patient experience. Offering on-site childcare, care packages, this time was used as an opportunity to educate the public about COVID-19, the pandemic, and information about vaccinations.