ATHENS, Ga. – It is five in the morning, the sun is not even up yet and while most people are still asleep in their beds, Dr. Cshanyse Allen is already answering one of her roughly 70,000 emails and preparing to teach her students in the certified nursing assistant training facility that she founded, the Innovative Healthcare Institute. 

 

By 7:30 a.m. Dr. Allen has already put on her scrubs and traveled to her office in the Innovative Healthcare Institute in east Athens. With a bright smile, Dr. Allen adjusts her glasses and turns on the fluorescent lights that illuminate her classroom space that is lined with tables and chairs that will soon be filled with students. All around are posters of the human body, there is even a life-size human skeleton.  

 

Dr. Allen inherited her passion for helping others from her late grandmother, Evelyn Neely, who also spent her life working as an activist and community leader in east Athens. After Dr. Allen received her doctorate in nursing practice, she worked in and around the Atlanta area until her grandmother eventually called her and asked her to come home to Athens, so she could “use her talents there.”

 

“She was for the people,” said Dr. Allen. “People called her the mayor of east Athens.” 

 

Shortly thereafter, Dr. Allen moved back to Athens and decided to fix a problem that she saw not only in the Athens area, but in the entire healthcare field: a lack of fellow minority healthcare workers. To fix this problem, Dr. Allen founded the Innovative Healthcare Institute in 2015, so she could train people of all backgrounds to become certified nursing assistants. The IHI has graduated “around 300” students since it opened more than seven years ago. 

 

When Dr. Cshanyse Allen is not teaching students how to become certified nursing assistants in her Innovative Healthcare Institute, she is finding innovative ways to fight the disenfranchisement of voters in east Athens–Clarke County.

 

Serving as the President of the Inner East Athens Neighborhood Association (IEANA), Allen helps to advocate for issues that are happening within her community. Currently, Dr. Allen is advocating for a new commissioner to fill the vacant seat left by Mariah Parker for Athens–Clarke County commission district two, which serves a large portion of east Athens residents.  

 

While initially hoping for a special election, Dr. Allen is now simply asking for someone to be appointed to fill the position. The election for the new commissioner has been designated for March 23 of 2023. Leaving citizens of district two without representation for almost seven months. Per the U.S. Census, in 2020 there were approximately “127,358” people who lived in ACC and according to the ACC Gov.’s website, there are ten commissioner districts in ACC. Therefore, the delay for an election will leave approximately 12,376 people without representation. 

 

“We will continue to tell our story. We will get on any platform we can to get the word out,” said Dr. Allen. “At this point we just need a body. We need a vote.”