For 35 years, Dr. Patch Adams and the Gesundheit Institute have worked on a model of health care that puts care at the center of health. Gesundheit has launched a grassroots campaign to raise $1 million in 08-09 to create a Teaching Center and Clinic where health care practitioners will gather to further ideas and strategies for changing the health care system. A major donor campaign is expected to raise an additional $9 million. With your help, we will establish a physical center to demonstrate an ongoing, working model of joy in service.

Gesundheit News


summer 2007Thinking Outside the Box 2008: Re-Design Our Health Care System, August 6–11
Participate in a 5-day working conference at the Gesundheit Institute in Hillsboro West Virginia. The aim is to seed a variety of designs of projects at the local level, that will fundamentally change the health care system for the better. Read more here. For reflections on the 2007 conference, read here.

To Iquitos with love: the Fourth Annual Gesundheit Iquitos Clown Service Experience, August 2008
The Belen district at the edge of Iquitos, Peru near the headwaters of the Amazon River, is one of Latin America's most impoverished communities. From lack of sanitation and clean water to unemployment and hunger, the community of 15,000 struggles from neglect and exploitation. Gesundheit has been organizing annual clown trips to Iquitos for the past three years to show some love, work with the community, paint houses. This summer we want to continue the friendship with this community and invite you to join in! Read more ...

Japan clown tour with Patch Adams, September 11–19, 2008
This will be the first clown tour in Japan. Visit hospitals and institutions with Patch Adams to present love, smiles, and healing for patients, elderly persons, physically challenged persons, families and medical staff. Read more ...

OVER THE RAINBOW: Romania Clown Tour 2008 * October 19–28, 2008
To walk toward suffering ... with a goofy costume and smiling eyes, to touch the lives of people who need it most - that's the calling of humanitarian clowning. We invite you to join the 2008 Romanian Clown Tour to help bring that kind of care to hospitals, orphanages, and nursing homes, to children with HIV, to children and adults who live on the street. Read more ...
"We All Need Each Other" - Reflections on Spring Break in Haiti
We who have been the core of Gesundheit humanitarian clowning for decades started taking groups of students on spring-break trips to poor countries to clown. We want young people to experience what happens in themselves when they see that their actions of love and healing relieve suffering. Read more ...
ginevra in kabul Sign up for a Humanitarian Clown Trip to Italy.
This is our 6th Clown trip to Italy, where we'll spread joy by clowning in hospitals, nursing homes, prisons, on the streets. No prior experience necessary---just doing it is the best education! Read more here.
Health Care Justice Retreat Update
30 medical students involved gathered on the Gesundheit land in West Virginia January 2-5, 2008 to start the New Year with new ideas for the health care relationship. This retreat was organized by students involved in the American Medical Students Association. Please stay in touch to hear about future retreats.
Gesundheit completes its 8th Humanitarian Clown Trip for 2007
Gesundheit returned to Peru in December 2007, bringing several dozen high school aged youth from Camp Winnarainbow to make fun and friendship and improve health care and sanitation in the area. Read about past clown trips ...
Pruno designing Scuola per Projettare una Societa… in Pruno, Italy
The School for Designing a Society and the Gesundheit Institute held a one week workshop in Pruno, Italy at the end of November, 2007. SDAS worked with Italian students, artists, priests, and community organizers to imagine, in the media of performance, music, and writing, a society based on desirable premises. Read reflections on the SDAS blog ...