Runner Meghan Tizzano

Megan is one of five RHAP supporters running in the  2018 United Airlines NYC Half-Marathon to benefit RHAP.  Learn about Meghan and why she supports expanding access to reproductive health care.

Tell us  about yourself

I am a 29 (almost 30 – birthday is end of January) woman and I have been living in NYC for almost 2 years now. I recently started a new job as a consultant with the NYC DOHMH working to help foster care agencies build their capacity to provide reproductive health care to their youth in care. I love spending time with close friends and enjoy spending time with them at long dinners over many shared glasses of wine. When I need a recharge I love to spend my Sunday’s lounging around, bingeing a few shows, reading, cooking for the week and if the weather is nice, long walks around my neighborhood. I’m fairly new to the running world as my first half marathon was October 2016. I love to be active, although finding the time (and honestly the motivation) is sometimes difficult. I ran the NYC Half this past March and absolutely LOVED it. I love New York City and felt that race was very much a New York thing to do. One thing I particularly love about running, especially in New York, is that my long runs always take me to different parts of the city that I’ve never been. It’s been really great to explore my “new” home by way of running.

I found RHAP just by doing some internet research. After the November 2016 election, I was feeling a lot of despair and anxiety about the future of country and was worried about how the country was going to move forward. The election outcome had a silver lining for me as I wanted to become more active in ensuring the rights of everyone in the country were not being taken from them or used against them. I started googling on how I could be a better activist and found that RHAP’s mission held a lot of my values.

What was your first experience with RHAP?

This is actually going to be my first hands on experience with RHAP. I’ve been receiving the newsletters for some time now and have been interested in volunteering, unfortunately the opportunities don’t often line up with my availability. When I saw the call for runners for the Half, I was very excited as it combines two of my interests, running and reproductive health access.

Why do you want to be involved now? What motivates you to be involved in the field of reproductive health?

Similar to how I was first introduced to RHAP, after the end of 2016 I was looking to really get involved in ensuring the people’s civil rights were not being abused. In my last job, one of the many hats I wear was a health educator for a clinic on a Bronx public school campus. It was my job to ensure that students were able to access the services of the clinic but also to go into the classrooms and supplement their health education. A big focus of that education was reproductive health. I would teach an in-house 8 lesson curriculum that ranged from healthy relationships and decision making and consent to gender identity and expression to anatomy and contraceptives. It was very important to me to be able to provide adequate and accurate information to young people that are constantly inundated with information about all of these things from different sources. I feel it’s important they get the right information to make the right decisions for themselves, which is why I feel my personal values really align with the values of RHAP. RHAP is about providing adequate and appropriate reproductive health care to anyone who needs it.

Many people don’t realize that reproductive healthcare is a civil right and it’s imperative that people have access to the care that they need at any given time. Being part of an organization that strives to provide care to everyone is really important in the step to ensure that reproductive health continues to be seen as a civil right.

Is there anything else you’d like to share?

I’m really excited to be involved combining two of my passions and working with like-minded individuals. I’m looking forward to meeting the other runners and everyone who has organized the team and see how our collective interests/work can help push forward RHAP mission. You can donate to Meghan’s fundraiser by clicking here!