{"id":105143,"date":"2023-08-14T01:12:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-14T06:12:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/cfa\/?post_type=bu-article&#038;p=105143"},"modified":"2023-11-16T18:00:32","modified_gmt":"2023-11-16T23:00:32","slug":"dramatic-shift-claudine-hennessey","status":"publish","type":"bu-article","link":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/cfa\/magazine\/articles\/2023\/dramatic-shift-claudine-hennessey\/","title":{"rendered":"Dramatic Shift"},"content":{"rendered":"\t<div class=\"wp-block-editorial-leadin magazine-block-editorial-leadin is-style-image-to-text has-media has-media-focus-center-middle has-quaternary-theme\">\n\t\t<div class=\"container-lockup\">\n\n\t\t\t<div class=\"wp-block-leadin-media\">\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<img width=\"2560\" height=\"1707\" src=\"\/cfa\/files\/2023\/10\/CFA-CLAUDINE-HENNESSEY-Paul-Samuels-scaled.jpg\" class=\"\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/cfa\/files\/2023\/10\/CFA-CLAUDINE-HENNESSEY-Paul-Samuels-scaled.jpg 2560w, https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/cfa\/files\/2023\/10\/CFA-CLAUDINE-HENNESSEY-Paul-Samuels-636x424.jpg 636w, https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/cfa\/files\/2023\/10\/CFA-CLAUDINE-HENNESSEY-Paul-Samuels-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/cfa\/files\/2023\/10\/CFA-CLAUDINE-HENNESSEY-Paul-Samuels-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/cfa\/files\/2023\/10\/CFA-CLAUDINE-HENNESSEY-Paul-Samuels-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/cfa\/files\/2023\/10\/CFA-CLAUDINE-HENNESSEY-Paul-Samuels-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/cfa\/files\/2023\/10\/CFA-CLAUDINE-HENNESSEY-Paul-Samuels-1500x1000.jpg 1500w, https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/cfa\/files\/2023\/10\/CFA-CLAUDINE-HENNESSEY-Paul-Samuels-900x600.jpg 900w, https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/cfa\/files\/2023\/10\/CFA-CLAUDINE-HENNESSEY-Paul-Samuels-450x300.jpg 450w, https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/cfa\/files\/2023\/10\/CFA-CLAUDINE-HENNESSEY-Paul-Samuels-600x400.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\" \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<p class=\"wp-block-editorial-leadin-caption wp-prepress-component-caption\">Claudine Hennessey is working to improve the healthcare sector in South Africa, which is near the top of the list globally for cases of tuberculosis and HIV. <em>Photo by Paul Samuels<\/em><\/p>\n\t\t\t\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"container-words-outer\">\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"container-words-inner\">\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<span class=\"wp-prepress-tag\">Theatre<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h1 class=\"head\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tDramatic Shift\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/h1>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<h4 class=\"deck\">Claudine Hennessey traded her acting dreams for a life working to improve healthcare in South Africa<\/h4>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n\t\t\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t\n<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar magazine-prepress-layout-metabar\">\n\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-wrapper\">\n\t\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-date\">August 14, 2023<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-credits\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<ul data-credit-type=\"By\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<li><a href=\"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/cfa\/magazine\/authors\/steve-holt\/\">Steve Holt<\/a><\/li>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/ul>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<div class=\"wp-prepress-component-metabar-share js-bu-prepress-share-tools\">\n\t\t\t<span class=\"icon-twitter\"><span>Twitter<\/span><\/span>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"icon-facebook\"><span>Facebook<\/span><\/span>\n\t\t\t<span class=\"icon-action\"><\/span>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\t\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-editorial-introparagraph magazine-block-editorial-introparagraph is-style-large has-paragraph-color-quaternary\"><div class=\"wp-block-editorial-introparagraph-content\"><p><strong>Claudine Hennessey is sitting in the dark. <\/strong>Again. For the umpteenth time this week, the electricity has been turned off in her section of Cape Town, South Africa, because demand has overwhelmed the energy grid. The regular blackouts, called \u201cload shedding,\u201d are sometimes announced ahead of time, but they can happen with little notice. The government is telling residents to prepare for as many as 12 hours of load shedding a day in the near future. A portable battery pack powers a small lamp and keeps Hennessey\u2019s laptop running so she can do most of her work (and answer Zoom calls from BU reporters).&nbsp;<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Low-income South Africans are not as fortunate. For them, the consequences of load shedding can be dire. Hennessey (\u201996) says it prevents access to quality healthcare\u2014a sector she\u2019s served for nearly two decades, mostly in information technology. South Africa is near the top of the list globally for cases of tuberculosis and HIV, as well as sexual and domestic violence. A rolling electrical blackout is one more barrier to receiving care. If a patient makes it to a clinic and the power\u2019s out, their vitals, symptoms, and care plan might need to be recorded manually rather than in the nationwide information system. They may get to the hospital only to find the equipment needed to save their life is down.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s got catastrophic implications in the health sector,\u201d says Hennessey, who spends her days providing technical support to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usaid.gov\/\">United States Agency for International Development<\/a> (USAID) in her position as senior clinical cascade and strategic information lead at the consulting firm <a href=\"https:\/\/panagoragroup.net\/\">Panagora Group<\/a>. \u201c[Load shedding] has kicked up a whole host of things for a country that was doing really well, but this is definitely going to impact it negatively.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Make no mistake, Hennessey loves living in her adopted South Africa, where she\u2019s been for 14 years, and believes deeply in the work she does helping improve the healthcare system. But it\u2019s a vastly different life than she imagined for herself as an undergraduate studying theater at BU, dreaming of one day making it big on the stage or screen.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3>Big Dreams, Hard Truths<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201c[It was] a bit na\u00efve or dramatic, but I always said I wanted to become rich and famous so I could use my fame for good,\u201d Hennessey says. Well-trained at one of Minnesota\u2019s top arts academies, Hennessey was accepted into BU\u2019s theater program. The first-generation student set out to perform in the classics, especially Shakespeare, and frequently was cast in the role of the mother or grandmother because she looked older than her age. Her senior year, she and fellow students went on auditions in New York City, but Hennessey didn\u2019t get any parts. \u201cBeing plus-sized [and young] at the time, I was never going to get hired in New York to play the mother in <em>The Glass Menagerie<\/em>,\u201d she recalls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She moved to Chicago and began taking improvisational comedy classes at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.secondcity.com\/\">The Second City<\/a>. To make ends meet, she sold programs and T-shirts in the theater. She met current and future <em>Saturday Night Live<\/em> cast members, like Rachel Dratch and Chris Farley. Her acting teacher was Tina Fey, who suggested that Hennessey\u2019s classical training was getting in the way of her sketch comedy. Hennessey loved rehearsing too much to feel at home in improv. Fey, who would go on to become a <em>Saturday Night Live<\/em> \u201cWeekend Update\u201d host and an Emmy-winning comic actress, dealt Hennessey\u2019s young acting career its death blow with six words: \u201cYou\u2019re not cut out for improv.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hennessey was crushed. Acting had been her first love since she was a child. Still, she knew that between the difficulty she had getting parts and Fey\u2019s brutal advice, she would need to pivot to something more sustainable\u2014at least in the near term. A job search in Chicago brought her to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lls.org\/\">Leukemia &amp; Lymphoma Society<\/a>, accompanying charity runners to marathons around the world. She ran the Vancouver Marathon in honor of a friend\u2019s son who\u2019d died from leukemia. But with her acting dreams shattered and boredom taking root, Hennessey opted to take another risk: on a whim, she applied for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.peacecorps.gov\/\">Peace Corps<\/a>, requesting a volunteer post somewhere in Africa. It would be a homecoming of sorts, as Hennessey was born in England to parents who were in the Royal Air Force. Hennessey\u2019s father had moved the family to Zambia for a job when she was a toddler, and the family lived in southern Africa for eight years. The Peace Corps sent her to Cameroon, in West Africa, where she learned French and eventually settled in a Muslim village in the middle of the country. Living on a lake, she taught sex education and HIV prevention, paddling on boats from village to village to demonstrate male contraception using wooden penises. She ended up seeing many types of health challenges. \u201cPeople kept bringing their sick kids to me, and I couldn\u2019t really do anything about it,\u201d she recalls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When Hennessey\u2019s service ended, she returned to the US and began a two-year nursing program at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, with the goal of returning to Africa. A year into her degree, in 2007, Hennessey had an opportunity through Johns Hopkins to study forensic nursing in South Africa for 12 weeks. She worked in a mortuary, reviewing the autopsy files of women who\u2019d been raped and killed.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite the grim work she was doing, the country captured Hennessey\u2019s heart. \u201cI realized this is the place I really wanted to be when I finished my nursing degree,\u201d she says. \u201cThere is something about the people, environment, and spirit of Africa that makes you come alive, that challenges you in ways you never thought possible while at the same time showing incredible beauty, love, and compassion.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-bu-pullquote magazine-block-bu-pullquote is-style-pop has-quaternary-theme\"><div class=\"wp-block-bu-pullquote-inner\"><blockquote><div class=\"container-lockup\"><div class=\"container-icon-outer\"><div class=\"container-icon-inner\"><\/div><\/div><div class=\"container-text\"><hr\/><div class=\"quote-sizing\">[It was] a bit na\u00efve or dramatic, but I<br\/>always said I wanted to become rich and famous so I could use my fame for good.<\/div><footer class=\"caption\"><br\/>Claudine Hennessey<\/footer><hr\/><\/div><\/div><\/blockquote><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Hennessey returned to South Africa in 2008, but couldn\u2019t practice as a nurse. The South African Nursing Council didn\u2019t recognize her degree because it was a two-year degree. After a year of calls and letters to the nursing council, Hennessey, running out of money, gave up on working directly with patients as a nurse in South Africa. She instead went to work for a succession of government agencies and nonprofit organizations, joining a national effort to digitize patient records\u2014which were still being recorded and maintained manually in hospitals and clinics\u2014in order to report HIV and tuberculosis data to international databases. She helped design the curriculum South Africa uses to train healthcare workers on how to use the registry, and oversaw its implementation in more than 4,500 healthcare facilities and prisons. In February 2022, she joined Panagora, supporting strategic information activities across South Africa, as well as in Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), Botswana, Angola, Lesotho, and Namibia. She says the impact of poor infrastructure, including rolling blackouts, \u201cnegatively impacts years of progress and gains made in the digital health and informatics space.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hennessey, who turns 50 next year, says her job is 100 percent remote; she\u2019d eventually like to get back to working directly with healthcare providers in the clinics. Whenever she\u2019s hamming it up while training nurses and doctors on \u201csomething as boring as an information system,\u201d she\u2019s applying her acting training. She also dreams of one day launching a radio program about her adventures as a single expat dating in South Africa. Perhaps she\u2019ll join a community theater production.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"is-style-end-of-article\">\u201cI do have this secret desire in my head to be onstage some day and to use my fame for good,\u201d she says. \u201c[But] I\u2019m happy with what I\u2019m doing, and I have loved every opportunity.\u201d&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Low-income South Africans are not as fortunate. For them, the consequences of load shedding can be dire. Hennessey (\u201996) says it prevents access to quality healthcare\u2014a sector she\u2019s served for nearly two decades, mostly in information technology. South Africa is near the top of the list globally for cases of tuberculosis and HIV, as well [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6310,"featured_media":105147,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"bu_prepress_billboard":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term":"","_bu_prepress_primary_term_manual":""},"tags":[],"bu-publication":[191],"magazine-article-category":[372,378],"magazine-topic":[],"news-article-category":[],"news-topic":[],"bu_edition":[397],"media_type":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/105143"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/bu-article"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6310"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=105143"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/105143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":105750,"href":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-article\/105143\/revisions\/105750"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/105147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=105143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=105143"},{"taxonomy":"bu-publication","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu-publication?post=105143"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/magazine-article-category?post=105143"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/magazine-topic?post=105143"},{"taxonomy":"news-article-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-article-category?post=105143"},{"taxonomy":"news-topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-topic?post=105143"},{"taxonomy":"bu_edition","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/bu_edition?post=105143"},{"taxonomy":"media_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/id-andrea.cms-devl.bu.edu\/cfa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media_type?post=105143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}