GHR partner C₂N Diagnostics, a leader in advanced brain health diagnostics, has entered several important partnerships in the last quarter that will advance access to its PrecivityAD blood test. The PrecivityAD test is an innovative new blood test intended for use in patients with cognitive impairment. The test aims to help healthcare providers determine the presence or absence of amyloid plaques in the brain, a hallmark sign of Alzheimer’s disease.

Two of these new partnerships expand access to the test in Brazil and Australia. In Brazil, C2N is partnering with Grupo Fleury, one of Brazil’s leading healthcare companies. The partnership will introduce the most advanced set of plasma biomarkers to detect changes that indicate the presence of Alzheimer’s disease pathology in patients experiencing memory difficulties. In Australia, a partnership with Healius Ltd, one of Australia's leading listed healthcare companies, will enable the use of C₂N’s PrecivityAD blood test and related brain health biomarkers in memory and dementia care.

In addition, C2N and Eisai, Inc. are partnering to build awareness about how blood-based assays for cognitive impairment, including Alzheimer’s disease (AD), may help patients receive a timely diagnosis and appropriate treatment, especially in traditionally underserved communities. The development and adoption of blood-based assays in everyday clinical practice is an important step in improving care for people in remote and underserved communities where access to the traditional diagnostic tools of positron emission tomography (PET) and lumbar punctures are not viable options. 

C₂N Diagnostics’ Alzheimer's blood test was introduced into the clinic in October of 2020, a breakthrough healthcare innovation for patients, advocates, and physicians who have long awaited an easy to administer test that can help them better understand Alzheimer’s disease. 

Learn more about C₂N Diagnostics’ partnerships.

On August 24, 2022, the Children’s Code Act became official law in Zambia. This act solidifies various rights and protections for children, and officially establishes procedures for the regulation of foster care, adoption, and child care facilities.

This is a truly monumental milestone within the country after years of hard work among GHR partners and the Ministry of Community Development and Social Services to draft, revise, advocate, and shepherd the bill through the system to become law. The Children’s Code Act adds to an already impressive list of policy changes (e.g., Alternative Care and Reintegration Guidelines, Foster Care and Adoption Guidelines, Minimum Standards of Care for Child Care Facilities) that GHR’s investments and collaborative efforts have contributed to in strengthening the child protection system in Zambia for the long-term. 

President Hakainde Hichilema signed the Children’s Act after it was adopted in the Zambian National Parliament. This legislation is aligned with international child rights standards and will enable the protection of vulnerable children, especially those without adequate parental care, children living in the street, refugee children and children on the move. The law will also protect children who have experienced violence, abuse and neglect and will ensure their access to justice.  

The adoption of the Children’s Code Act represents the Zambian Government’s commitment to the rights and welfare of the child. The Act will protect children in all settings and will create an environment where all children can grow and thrive with full potential. The GHR Children in Families team wishes to acknowledge and celebrate our partners in Zambia—ACEZ, CMMB, CRS, Save the Children, UNICEF, and ZAS—for their tremendous contributions to this achievement.     

In commemoration of World Day of Migrants and Refugees, GHR partner Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS)
produced a photo essay highlighting, in the spirit of Pope Francis' teachings, that collective growth as a human family is only possible if all are able grow together in peace and dignity.

Click to view the photo essay and to learn more about World Day of Migrants and Refugees. 

Through long-term partnerships with local governments, GHR has worked to improve child welfare and child protection in Zambia and Cambodia, utilizing a systems-strengthening approach that prioritizes family- and community-based care for vulnerable children over a reliance on orphanages. 
Through an innovative, collective approach, the Foundation’s efforts in Zambia and Cambodia have focused on addressing the structural elements needed for sustainable, generational change, with investments in multiple partners working collaboratively in each country. This form of country systems development work attempts to address root-cause issues around child welfare and to deliver programs more effectively and holistically, in accordance with a government’s vision.

Mark Guy, Children in Families Senior Program Officer, shared “Protecting children means strengthening their schools, their home lives and even the income security for their families. It is a tall order — and not something any agency or government can manage alone. GHR is humbled by the opportunity to resource, collaborate with and learn alongside these partners.”
​
GHR’s learnings are captured in two reports that describe how the Foundation and its partners focused on locally-led systems strengthening. Explore the reports below:

Zambia Summary Report 
Cambodia Summary Report 

As Pope Francis apologizes to Canada's native people for the Catholic Church's role in the forced cultural assimilation and resultant abuse of Indigenous children, he offers a humbling example of efforts towards acknowledging and responding to the intergenerational trauma caused by government-funded Christian schools that separated families and isolated children from their culture. Part of a colonial project of assimilation, Pope Francis recognized these atrocities as “the colonialist mentality (which) disregarded the concrete life of people and imposed certain predetermined cultural models.” He reminds us, as Indigenous communities have long known, that “colonization has not ended; in many places it has been transformed, disguised and concealed.”

This represents a first step in a long process, as true acknowledgement of the indelible harm caused by the Church will need to be accompanied by meaningful action. The wounds of forced separation and abuse continue to mark the lived experiences of Indigenous communities today, a painful truth echoed in the responses of many Indigenous leaders to the Pope’s apology.

Through our work, GHR has learned about the vital importance of family care for a child’s long-term development and overall wellbeing, prompting our efforts to help strengthen families alongside Catholic communities, especially with Catholic Sisters. We know the Church has the potential to be a dynamic force for good in the world, as Pope Francis illuminates, and that it will take the support of a global community to continue the healing process.

While the Pope’s visit cannot erase the trauma of the past, GHR in inspired by Pope Francis’s steps toward reconciliation. The Foundation embraces similar opportunities to model his example and reflect on ourselves, our work, the communities we serve and opportunities for reconciliation from structural and systemic harm along the way.
​
Learn more about GHR’s work with the Church and family strengthening here, and the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition’s work for truth, healing, and justice for boarding school survivors and descendants.

An air of optimism marked the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC) in San Diego last week, as over 9,000 scientists joined in-person and virtually to share research discoveries, connect with their peers and learn from others. Several presenters highlighted the exciting potential of recent scientific developments, considered almost impossible to conceive of five or ten years ago. Today, the scientific community can completely remove amyloid plaque in the brain as measured by PET scans – the buildup of which is considered a precursor to Alzheimer’s Disease. New blood biomarkers offer greater understanding and ability to detect disease, without the cost and invasiveness of alternative testing procedures. Finally, prevention therapy offers the potential to treat Alzheimer’s patients ten to twenty years before the onset of symptoms.

The Alzheimer’s Association is a valued partner in our shared journey to find a way to prevent Alzheimer’s Disease and related dementias. Together, we have provided key philanthropic support to prevention trials in early onset families and in the general population. 
​
You can review the news highlights from AAIC and press releases to learn more about the exciting discoveries shared at AAIC 2022.

Through our Children in Families (CIF) initiative, GHR supports Catholic sisters and other key faith actors who lead with love as critical agents of change in care. To prevent children from being separated from their families in the first place, we also learn and collaborate to ensure systems overall are oriented toward family preservation and strengthening. And because alternatives to family care are sometimes necessary, we work alongside partners to ensure care is of high quality and for the shortest possible duration.

Catholic Care for Children (CCC) is a visionary initiative, led by Catholic sisters, to see children growing up in safe, nurturing families. Guided by the biblical mandate to care for the most vulnerable and animated by the principles of Catholic Social Teaching—especially the dignity of each person—CCC teams are reducing the need for institutional care by encouraging and facilitating family- and community-based care for children.

Download the July 2022 edition of AMECEA Magazine here to learn more.

From Commonweal Magazine: 
​
"What is the culture of encounter? It’s an idea, rooted in Catholic tradition, articulated by Pope Francis, that’s now active in aspects of the Church ranging from spirituality to diplomacy to interreligious dialogue to culture and the arts. Unlike the idea of synodality, which is abstruse and Church-specific, the idea of a culture of encounter is broadly humanistic and straightforward enough that people of various backgrounds can aspire to it. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that the success of the Synod on Synodality set to take place in Rome next year will depend on whether a culture of encounter is present there. Here’s hoping—and praying—that it is."

Read more.

From the Laudato Si' Movement:

For the first time, Pope Francis has published in advance his message for the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation, which is celebrated every September 1. It marks the beginning of the Season of Creation, an ecumenical period that unites Christians to pray and take action for our common home.

​What does the message say? We summarize it in four key points:

• A time to cultivate our ecological conversion

The Pope defines the Season of Creation as “an opportunity to cultivate our ‘ecological conversion’”, recalling this concept encouraged by St. John Paul II as a response to the ‘ecological catastrophe’ announced by St. Paul VI as early as 1970.
In this way, he invites all Christians during this time to “pray once more in the great cathedral of creation, and revel in the “grandiose cosmic choir” made up of countless creatures, all singing the praises of God”. 
People of faith, says the Pope, feel “even more responsible for acting each day in accordance with the summons to conversion.  Nor is that summons simply individual: “the ecological conversion needed to bring about lasting change is also a community conversion”. 

• Sweet song and bitter cry

Listening to creation, Francis mentions that there is a “kind of dissonance”: “On the one hand, we can hear a sweet song in praise of our beloved Creator; on the other, an anguished plea, lamenting our mistreatment of this our common home”.
In this regard, the Executive Director of Laudato Si’ Movement, Tomás Insua, mentioned: “The sweet song of creation is mixed with its bitter cry, as evidenced by the intense heat wave that is experienced in much of the northern hemisphere and that has already killed, only in Spain and Portugal, more than 1000 people or has left 5 million people without water in Monterrey, Mexico”. 
Francis encourages people to stop consumerism, change lifestyles and harmful systems. All scientific reports prove it and the Pope reaffirms it: “We are reaching ‘a breaking point’” and we must act now. “The crisis is no longer a hypothesis of a distant future but a tangible reality that is costing human lives,” added Tomás. 

• A warning message ahead the COPs

Ahead COP 27 on climate (Egypt, November 2022) and COP 15 on biodiversity (Canada, December 2022) Francis recalls in his message the importance of “promoting the effective implementation of the Paris Agreement”, as recently ratified by the Holy See. 
“Each passing moment is an opportunity for everyone, especially world leaders, to reverse the biodiversity and climate crises. Let COP 27 bring forth ambitious commitments to prevent carbon emissions from fossil fuels and support for clean energy transition as well as efficient relief for our brothers and sisters already within the climate crisis. Let COP 15 bring forth a firm commitment to end any more biodiversity collapse”, said Lindlyn Moma, Advocacy Director of the Laudato Si’ Movement.
And to the community of Catholics, the Pope calls them to prayer: “In this Season of Creation, let us pray that COP27 and COP15 may unite the human family to decisively address the double crisis of climate and biodiversity reduction”.

• Four key principles for biodiversity

Francis also uses his message to call on nations to halt the further collapse of the “web of life” – biodiversity – pointing to four principles:

1. Building a clear ethical basis for the transformation we need in order to save biodiversity; 
2. Fight biodiversity loss, support its conservation and recovery, and meet people’s needs in a sustainable way; 
3. Promote global solidarity, taking into account that biodiversity is a global common good that requires a shared commitment; 
4. Put people in vulnerable situations at the center, including those most affected by biodiversity loss, such as indigenous peoples, older people and youth.

Working at the intersection of our Twin Cities Racial Equity initiative and long-term partnerships with Catholic Sisters, GHR is supporting the Nuns & Nones Land Justice Project – a new initiative that expands opportunities for Sisters to reimagine the future of land in their possession in a creative manner, in alignment with their charism and leadership in climate and racial justice.

By resourcing land-based projects like regenerative farms, habitat restoration initiatives, Black food sovereignty collectives, and Indigenous land management, the project works to address the enduring legacies of colonization, privatization, structural inequality, and systemic racism.
​
Learn more about the Nuns & Nones Land Justice Project.