Ophelia Dahl

Ophelia Magdalena Dahl (born May 12, 1964) is an Anglo-American social justice and health care advocate.

As of January 2008, Dahl is the president and executive director of Partners In Health (PIH), a Boston, Massachusetts-based non-profit health care organization dedicated to providing a "preferential option for the poor."^[1] She first encountered Paul Farmer, the future co-founder of PIH, as an eighteen-year-old volunteer in Haiti, and has since dedicated her life to advocating for social justice and healthcare equity.^[2]

As a co-founder and key member of the PIH team, Dahl was featured prominently in Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, a Man Who Would Cure the World, Tracy Kidder's book describing the work of the organization and the life of Dr. Farmer. In December, 2006, Ophelia Dahl and Paul Farmer received the Union Medal from Union Theological Seminary in New York.

Dahl is the daughter of actress Patricia Neal and author Roald Dahl. Dahl contributed to the 2003 book The Roald Dahl Treasury, a collection of her father's stories, memoirs, letters and poetry, and is currently writing a memoir of her father. She is a trustee of the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre, a registered charity with the mission of "telling Roald Dahl’s life story, to care for his archive and to promote a love of creative writing in everyone."^[3]

Dahl graduated from Wellesley College as a Davis Scholar^[4] and delivered Wellesley's 2006 commencement address.^[5]

In 2011, she was named by the Boston Globe as one of the three Bostonians of the Year,^[6] along with her Partners in Health co-founder, Paul Farmer and a senior member of Partners in Health, Louise Ivers. This was mainly due to her and the charity's response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake.^[6] She has also been selected by Social Capital Inc. (SCI)as a 2011 SCI Idealist Award recipient, to be given on March 30, 2011.

References

1. ^ "PIH Governance, Partners in Health Official Site". Pih.org. http://www.pih.org/who/governance.html. Retrieved 2011-01-29. 
2. ^ "Remarks by the 2005 International Development Conference Panel on Delivery Innovations". Gsb.stanford.edu. 2005-02-26. http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/headlines/2005internatldevconf_deliverypanel.shtml. Retrieved 2011-01-29. 
3. ^ "Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre Official Site". Roalddahlmuseum.org. http://www.roalddahlmuseum.org/. Retrieved 2011-01-29. 
4. ^ "Wellesley Commencement Press Release". Wellesley.edu. http://www.wellesley.edu/PublicAffairs/Releases/2006/031306.html. Retrieved 2011-01-29. 
5. ^ "Ophelia Dahl's Commencement Address to the Wellesley College Class of 2006". Wellesley.edu. 2006-06-09. http://www.wellesley.edu/PublicAffairs/Commencement/2006/ODahl.html. Retrieved 2011-01-29. 
6. ^ ^{a b} "Bostonians of the Year". Boston.com. 2011-01-02. http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/articles/2011/01/02/bostonians_of_the_year_the_healers/. Retrieved 2011-01-29. 

Further reading

• Partners In Health Director's Message
• Telegraph Article
• Ophelia Dahl's Union Medal acceptance speech podcast

Persondata
Name	Dahl, Ophelia
Alternative names	'Minnie'
Short description
Date of birth	May 12, 1964
Place of birth	Oxford, United Kingdom
Date of death
Place of death