Health and Happiness: How one Man Changed Lives in the Amazon Basin: Social Entrepreneur from Brazil - Global 3000 16.06.2008

He could have been a chief surgeon in a big Sao Paulo hospital like his father, and rake in the cash. Eugenio Scannavino Neto did become a doctor ... in the Amazon Basin. He took his doctor's bag from village to village, sometimes a two day trip along the river, so remote were the settlements. And he always treated the same illnesses: dysentery epidemics, caused by drinking the dirty river water. The malnourished children often failed to survive. But that was 15 years ago. Now Eugenio rarely works as a doctor; instead he runs his "Saude e Alegria", or "Health and Happiness" project, which has transformed the lives of more than 150 communities in the Santarem region. We joined the 49 year-old social entrepreneur.