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Dr. Renee Maltinaa Campbell
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF PHOENIX GLOBAL HUMANITARIAN FOUNDATION
For more than 40 years, Dr. Renee Maltinaa Ann Campbells' pedagogy and social practice has been immersed in her multifaceted identity as an award-winning international speaker and leader with Kentucky native roots hailing from Southern Logan County’s rural Adairville. She is the daughter of the late Mrs. Mary Sears Campbell and Mr. Walter Louis Campbell, Sr. Unbeknown to her, during her early childhood filled with provincial experiences, the life lessons gained within intimate country living and transplanted city memories would later serve her well, to serve communities from diverse backgrounds while actualizing a lifelong journey within the intersections of education, social work, and humanitarianism. Her widespread leadership has afforded her numerous accolades and achievements that illuminate her humble core of intentional giving.
Dr. Renee Campbell is a recipient of the 2022-University of Louisville, Raymond A. Kent School of Social Work and Family Science Fellow. Also, during 2022, she received the Louisville Defender Business and Professional Achievement award. Dr. Campbell is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc, Phi Delta Kappa International Honor Society and Phi Alpha International Honor Society.
She was the Coordinator and Clinical Assistant Professor in the College of Social Work at the University of Kentucky for two years. Her work includes teaching experience at numerous Colleges and Universities, and one of which is considered a leading University, according to US News and World Report. Recently, she returned as an Adjunct Professor with the University of Southern California, College of Social Work where she taught and supervised postgraduate social work students.
She has been entrusted by double board certified, “2009 Physician of the Year, Dr. Elizabeth Garcia-Janis” with leading Phoenix Global Humanitarian Foundation forward as the Kentucky anchored non-profit Executive Director. Her continual strides of engaging individuals from countries across the globe including West African villages of Tamale, Tolon, and Sabegu in Ghana have expanded PGHF efforts to assist individuals that have suffered losses, hardships, natural and manmade disasters.
Dr. Campbell’s highly effective intercultural expertise has brokered connectivity among people of many languages and traditions. Her ongoing work has garnered sustainable educational development in the aforementioned villages establishing educational support for socioeconomically disadvantaged youth. In the Fall of 2019, Dr. Campbell initiated and facilitated the first educational scholarship program for children ranging from kindergarten through eighth grade in the village of Tolon Ghana, West Africa. The scholarship program provided twenty-three educational scholarships absorbing expenses for school fees, uniforms, and books. The scholarship program is in its fourth year and recipeints will continue to receive scholarships through the eighth grade.
The echoing effects of stimulating Ghana’s educational resources and engaging programs to uplift youth while additionally empowering women across ages, has developed an enhanced community infrastructure within the various villages' agricultural and sociopolitical landscapes.
Dr. Campbell's interest and passion extend beyond geographical borders to Africa with earnest commitment, where in 2005, she was appointed Sub-Chief by the Tolon Traditional Council in the village of Tolon, Ghana.
In Tolon she created, directed, and facilitated transformative programs for youth, women, and families. While U.S. stateside community members know Dr. Campbell as a civically engaged professor, social worker, mentor, advocate, leader, colleague and dear friend; many Ghanaian citizens know her as Maltinaa of Tolon, which translates to Unity Leader, Sub-Chief or Reconciler of Tolon.
In the last 20 years of Dr. Campbell’s trailblazing career, her unifying attributes provided the necessary skills to serve as President and CEO of one of the first transitional programs in the United States. Within human service centered organizations that she has engaged with, stabilizing self-sufficiency and developing opportunities to cultivate the whole person has been the focus.
Dr. Campbell has an intricately woven background that extends her personal and professional work across a plethora of organizations. As one of the founding Mothers of the Louisville Clothesline Project, she brought attention to the widespread abuse of women and provided a safe platform for voice and agency to speak out against violence and oppression. Carrying that effort to the village of Sabegu in Tamale and Tolon Ghana, Dr. Campbell facilitated a womens’ empowerment initiative that brought intrinsic healing to Ghanaian women that were survivors of abuse and maltreatment. Spearheading, developing, and implementing programs that bring attention to abuse and sexual assaults of women in Ghana, West Africa and Okinawa, Japan has increased awareness and emboldened populations that she serves to speak out against their abusers. Her current programs implemented through Phoenix Global Humanitarian Foundation further serve diverse populations, with an emphasis on women and family specific educational and empowerment resources.
Dr. Campbell has achieved what many view as the inconceivable against all odds, through her resilient self-leadership. Recognized as a Muhammad Ali Daughter of Greatness and featured in “Who’s Who in African American Profiles", and in the book, “100 Fascinating Louisville Women”, her impact continues to inspire generations of living change-agents ready to pour love and compassion immeasurably. In July of 2018, Dr. Campbell received a Women’s Leadership certificate from Cornell University, exhibiting her commitment to not only educate others, but to be forever learner. Prior to this achievement Dr. Campbell became the proud recipient of the “Center for Women and Families - 2013 Women of Distinction Award.”
Presently she is a “Tip It Forward”, and the World Affairs Council board of directors member. Complementing all her non-profit board of director engagement, she participated as a board member of the Center for Women and Families, Interfaith Path to Peace, and was the former Vice-President of Sister Cities of Louisville. Dr. Campbell is a member of the Kosair Charities’ Face It Policy Team and was on the Mary Byron Project board for 22 years.
In December of 2021, Dr. Campbell continued her launch of “A Voice” the Mrs. Ada Doss Campbell Story, a restorative narrative-guided movement that is supported by Phoenix Global Humanitarian Foundation and has been championed by a host of national community leaders. This year marks the 20th anniversary of this truth-seeking journey that continues to shine a light on the professional medical neglect experienced by her late grandmother, Mrs. Ada Doss Campbell. Mrs. Doss Campbell was a former victimized patient at Lakeland Lunatic Asylum from 1935 to 1940. No longer known as Lakeland, the historical significance remains even now under the hospital's moniker, Central State Hospital, located in Louisville, Kentucky. The initial Kentucky Foundation for Women funded research in 2003 provided a clear path to investigate the inequities associated with the wrongful death. Fast forward after years of relentless dedication, Dr. Campbell established the Mrs. Ada Doss Campbell Memorial Scholarship Fund in 2021 to undergird academic expenses for undergraduate students pursuing degrees in social work at HBCU, Kentucky State University. The scholarship fund was established at the Community Foundation of Louisville.
A Citation of Adjournment was read on the The House of Representatives Commonwealth of Kentucky floor honoring Mrs. Ada Doss Campbell.
The Emmy-nominated investigative journalism generated by WHAS of Mrs. Ada Doss Campbell’s story has also been esteemed with an, In Depth/Investigative 1st Place award, by the National Press Photographers Association in 2021.
Our triumphs are not the calculations of our respite, but the results of the choices to pursue the dreamable, even when that material reality may appear intangible.
The fervor of Dr. Campbell among all of her lived experiences has unequivocally led her upward path towards a trajectory of altruistic excellence. Her strategic framework has a way of traveling that little Adairville girl around the world while simultaneously welcoming engrafted family, friends, and village-builders into her work for a place to call home.
Her proudest and most cherished accomplishments are truly her three children: Phillip, Benjamin and Tristan, along with her grandchildren: Ja Nice, Baylen, Ezekiel, Azaiah, Josephine and Aria. Dr. Campbell considers herself to be a spiritual person who believes that individuals who see themselves as being successful have a social responsibility to reach out and help others along the way. Her selected path is visibly poised with a forward parceled grace.
Dr. Elizabeth Garcia-Janis
FOUNDER OF PHOENIX GLOBAL HUMANITARIAN FOUNDATION
Dr. Garcia-Janis is the founder of Phoenix Global Humanitarian Foundation.
Dr. Garcia-Janis is a double board certified child and adult psychiatrist who has been practicing Psychiatry for about 40 years. She was the Medical Director of the Community Mental Health of Ottawa County in Holland, Michigan where she worked with those who have severe co-occurring disorders including Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) and Multi-disciplinary Team (MDT) patients. She also worked with the CMH patients in Jail in Ottawa County.
Dr. Garcia-Janis was also the Chief Medical Officer of the Child Psychiatric Services of a large comprehensive mental health organization – Seven Counties Services, Inc., for 15 years. Dr. Garcia-Janis helped jump-start multiple programs which included the School-based Services and the Lighthouse Adolescent Drug and Alcohol Residential Center when she worked at the Seven Counties Services, Inc. In Louisville, Kentucky.
Dr Garcia-Janis worked with refugees, evacuees and displaced people and had been intensively involved in volunteer short term disaster relief work in various parts of the world for many years (i.e. Tsunami in Thailand; Katrina hurricane relief of evacuees in Texas; Mt Pinatubo volcanic eruption in the Philippines; clean water for the world projects in Africa; Nicaraguan refugees in Alajuelita, Costa Rica).
She also served administratively as medical director for various agencies and hospitals.
She was the only psychiatrist in the Pine Ridge reservation serving a population of 40,000 Native American Lakotas. She worked in Pine Ridge as a response to a tribal emergency declared by the tribal president at the time because of an inordinate number of cluster youth suicides in the reservation. Dr. Garcia-Janis facilitated the beginning of Tele-Psychiatry in Pine Ridge Hospital to help reach the more remote areas of the reservation. She also helped develop the School-based services there to help reduce the acuity of the students who were experiencing dual-diagnosis, depression and suicidality.
She was awarded the American Psychiatric Association Distinguished Fellow Award. Dr. Garcia-Janis was also awarded “Physician of the Year – 2009” by the Medi-Star Medical News in Louisville, Kentucky for her community service. She was selected as Top Psychiatrist 2013 by the organization Leading Psychiatrists of the World. She received awards for her local and global humanitarian relief efforts.
Dr. Garcia-Janis published several books including: Utmost (co-authored) and Your Compassionate Nature.
Dr Garcia-Janis is presently based in the beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota and continues to work as a Tele-psychiatrist serving people in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
A Message From The Founder
The Phoenix Global Humanitarian Foundation was born based on ideals of serving those who are most in need, that a small group of thoughtful and committed people can make a difference, and that the sheer essence of love of mankind is to help those who are experiencing disasters, losses and tragedies.
After having done volunteer short term medical missions in various parts of the world, it became a spiritual imperative for me to consolidate and cultivate these ideals, and thus, the Phoenix Global Humanitarian Foundation was created. The Phoenix is a mythological healing symbol of hope, of rising from the ashes of despair only to consequently give beautiful light, love and compassion to our world.
Coming from a huge close-knit family from the Philippines, I had experienced a lot of joy, love and a sense of belonging. However, the opposite was also true. I had also experienced a lot of losses, tragedies, and had been in disasters like earthquakes, floods, typhoons. Having gone through all that gave me the sense of empathy and compassion for those in dire need. Serving others who are going through these challenges became a life purpose for me.
It became clear to me that in my desire to do what is in the best interest of a greater good, I had to partner with like – minded humanitarian leaders like Dr. Renee Campbell, who is now the current CEO of the Phoenix Global Humanitarian Foundation. She is a brilliant, dedicated and big-hearted woman who sees education, community development and positive actions as the best tools in helping those who suffer. She serves as an extraordinarily dignified voice in the midst of those who feel voiceless. We both believe in the empowerment of people to help themselves overcome even the most difficult scenarios. We both share the mission of helping those who suffer disasters, losses and tragedies.
As a Child and Adult Psychiatrist who has been practicing for almost 40 years, I have witnessed the incredible pain people have suffered physically, emotionally, psychologically and even spiritually. I have also witnessed the heartwarming resilience, strength and indomitable spirits of those who worked so hard in surviving what may seem to be impossible life circumstances. These amazingly resilient people who eventually use their experiences to help others – I call them the Phoenix Miracle people.
My hope is that the mission of Phoenix Global Humanitarian Foundation inspires you in some way to find it in your heart to help those who are suffering locally and globally. Like the Phoenix, may you rise as far as you can to give hope, light, love and compassion for our world.
Respectfully,
Elizabeth A. Garcia-Janis, MD, DFAPA
