Tim Evans
Engage Now
“Putting The Last First: The Spirit Of Outreach Toward A Servant / Catalyst Model Of Guided Change”

Biography:

Dr. Tim Evans and his wife Melissa are the parents of five children. They live on a ranch just outside of Oakley, Utah. He practices family dentistry in Salt Lake City and since 1982 has been heavily involved in humanitarian work in poor countries.

Dr. Evans' interest in third-world peoples began when he lived in the Peruvian highlands as a missionary. At that time he began to develop the idea of working through poor villagers to solve public health problems. In 1977 he received his D.D.S. degree from the University of the Pacific School of Dentistry in San Francisco. After establishing a successful private practice in Salt Lake City he again turned his attention to the plight of the rural poor in the High Andes. He organized The Andean Children's Foundation in 1982.

He designed and managed the Rotary funded rural development program launched in 1986. Grants from Rotary, Battson, Anderson, Candle, and NAPA; contributions from individuals; and several substantial grants from the Humanitarian Services Committee of the LDS Church and the Thrasher Research Fund have helped expand programs into over sixty Altiplano villages.

Dr. Evans has written several monographs on the relationship of culture to development, management of development programs, the roles of Service-Learning and Servant-Leadership in development, and other concept papers describing his idea of people centered, development in poor rural villages. His article, The Rope Pump in Bolivia, published in Waterlines: Appropriate Technologies for Water Supply and Sanitation, (Vol. XII #2, 1993) describes the high discharge pumps developed for poor households.

Although the successes of The Andean Children's Foundation exceeded his expectations, Dr. Evans recognized that one of his original objectives-to provide a meaningful service outlet for volunteers-had not been addressed effectively. As a result he organized another charity called the Center for Humanitarian Outreach and Inter-Cultural Exchange (CHOICE). CHOICE is designed to mobilize volunteer participation in support of grassroots village initiatives. Programs have emerged in India, Egypt, Guatemala, Peru, Bolivia, Mexico, Kenya, Indonesia, Samoa and Viet Nam.

In 2000, Dr. Evans launched yet another agency called The Engage Now Foundation which he organized to help nurture a significant 60-village program in Ethiopia. This project encompasses the full spectrum of his Rapid Action Management Program or RAMP methodology; as well as the Sustainable Orphan Advocacy and Rescue (SOAR) initiative which addresses the burgeoning African orphan crisis through community-based intervention protocol.

Dr. Evans seeks innovative ways to help poor people overcome their problems and to provide opportunities for the more abundantly blessed to share with them. In 1987 the Candle Foundation awarded Dr. Evans its Social Innovation award for health projects in Bolivia. In 1988 Rotary District 542 awarded Evans a similar award for water development projects. Rotary International recognized Dr. Evans with its Meritorious Service Award for his work in poor Andean villages in 1989. He received the 1992 Freedom Award for his international work; the 1993 Quiet Pioneers Award; a recognition from the Freedom Foundation at Valley Forge in 1997; and the Utah Dental Association's 1998 Distinguished Service Award for outreach programs in Peru and Mexico; and in 2002, the Distinguished Alumni Recognition from the University of Utah. While Dr. Evans is grateful for the public access and good will these acknowledgments provide he insists he is unworthy of them and wishes to recognize the entire team of wonderful and far more deserving collaborators and donors who have made his life-long adventure in service such a joy.

Beginning in June 2003 Dr. Evans will step aside from international development programs and move to Mexico with his family to serve a three-year mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.