Deo Niyizonkiza

Biography

Deogratias "Deo" Niyizonkiza, VHW's visionary founder and CEO, is a leading advocate for the most impoverished people in the world. His compassion, expertise, and life experience have made him a key voice in global health and international development.
An American citizen, Deo was born in rural Burundi, where he attended grade school and part of medical school. He left the country during the catastrophic war that lasted more than a decade and took the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Deo survived not only this man-made tragedy and poverty, but also homelessness in New York City.
Deo’s life journey is told in Pulitzer Prize-winner Tracy Kidder’s book, Strength in What Remains, a New York Times best seller named one of the best books of the year by the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times, and the Chicago Tribune.
Despite the hurdles he faced in the U.S.—homelessness, illness, and low-paying work delivering groceries— he eventually enrolled at Columbia University, where he received his bachelor’s degree. After graduating from Columbia, he attended the Harvard School of Public Health, where he met Dr. Paul Farmer and began working at the medical nonprofit organization Partners In Health and Harvard Medical School. He left Partners In Health to continue his medical education at Dartmouth Medical School.
In 2005, guided by his unwavering conviction that humanity’s progress should be measured by how we honor the dignity of others, including those a world away, Deo traveled back to Burundi. There, in the remote village of Kigutu, he established Village Health Works, with the goal of removing barriers to human dignity and progress by creating a model health care system and education based on critical thinking. Deo's passion rallied the community of Kigutu into action. Thanks to community-donated land, a small amount of seed money from American fellow medical students and supporters, a community of compassionate volunteers, and Deo's l