Community stories

Children enrolled in FAST Heroes at their schools learn about the most common symptoms of stroke and the importance of calling an ambulance immediately if these symptoms appear. It relies on children’s enthusiasm for learning and sharing to transfer knowledge about stroke to their parents and grandparents.

The Angels Awards bring the key components of stroke care into focus and make data collection integral to care, thereby creating the necessary conditions for quality monitoring. But they have also proved to be useful for removing roadblocks to transformation.

Learning, like changing, requires an open mind that embraces the idea that there may be a better way to do things. Before any learning can take place, we must, in the words of one expert, place ‘a welcome mat at the threshold of the mind’.

There’s no finer moment on the Angels annual calendar than when past winners of the Spirit of Excellence Award rise to their feet to recognize a new class of winners and nominees for one of stroke’s most prestigious awards.

Many people think that it’s big events that change the world. Chaos theory says no. The idea that small changes can trigger vast outcomes is known as the butterfly effect. We are asked to imagine a butterfly’s wing flap causing a typhoon . .

FAST Heroes volunteering in South America shows that volunteering is not just an act of goodwill—it is a strategic driver of sustainable community health impact, supported by the clinical and educational expertise of Angels.