Chris Norwood
Chris Norwood, an award-winning author and journalist, is the founder of Health People: Community Preventive Health Institute in the South Bronx. She started Health People as a women’s AIDS peer education program in 1990; since then, Health People has gone forward to fight a range of chronic disease—especially diabetes and asthma—along with AIDS by training South Bronx residents affected by ill health to become leaders and educators to successfully fight disease and death in their own community. Health People has also shown that empowering people to build their own health and the health of their community results in them rebuilding their lives; dozens of men and women Health People trained as volunteer peer educators—including those with AIDS, a background of addiction, and little education—have gone on to complete their education and work full-time. Health People believes giving people the chance to build their own solutions is vital for all ages; its unique Kids-Helping-Kids mentoring program trains older teens with sick, missing, or deceased parents to be mentors for younger children in the same difficult situations. In 2005, Norwood was selected for a groundbreaking group Nobel Peace Prize nomination that honored one thousand women around the world for their local work. Her books include About Paterson: The Making and Unmaking of an American City—about America’s first industrial city—and Advice for Life: A Woman’s Guide to AIDS. She is a graduate of Wellesley College.
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