A Model of Powerful Impact: Susan Roylance

Susan Roylance started as a young girl to be concerned about her world, and even then found ways to make a difference. Now as a mother of seven, grandmother of thirty-four, and great grandmother of fourteen, she can look back on her service in forty-four countries and in high-level institutions like the United Nations and know that she has had a powerful impact in the world. 

Susan first formed Women for Integrity in the Nation (WIN), and later United Families International and Welcome Hand. She has been influential in many organizations like Family Watch International, World Congress of Families, Gathering Families, World Organization for Women (WOW), Sustainable Families Group, and Big Ocean Women.  

At the United Nations she is a respected leader and representative of women from many nations in the world. She is the author/compiler of several books on international family policy. They include The UN Negotiating Guide, The Family and the MDGs – Using Family Capital to Achieve the Millennium Development Goals and Family Capital and the SDGs – Implementing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. You might notice the phrase “family capital,” which is her term for describing the momentum and synergy of people living and working together, as a family, to accomplish important international goals.  

Deciding to do something about poverty, she and her husband, Bob, went to Africa in 2001 and spent four years in Kenya and Uganda. They developed the Stay Alive program to teach youth how to set positive goals to avoid getting AIDS. After Africa, Susan and Bob worked with the refugees from Burma (Myanmar) for 15 years. In 2019, when a temple was announced for Coban, Guatemala, they decided to go on a mission there for their church. 

While in Guatemala, the Roylances were able to bless the people with very important things like 5,000 water filters, 7,000 100-lb. bags of fertilizer to 207 villages, education and training to help farmers renew their degraded land, water barrels to catch drinkable rainwater for homes in the mountains, reading books in the library, and metal roofs for homes devastated by hurricanes. They started an important program called Sustainable Lives which will help the people find a way out of extreme poverty. Their remarkable leadership is received because the people feel their love. 

Susan has helped Big Ocean Women start a new WAVE in the valley of Siretquiche, Guatemala. With a focus on education, the mothers and children of our WAVE are learning to read their native language called Q’eqchi. The women have also come up with their own project to get out of extreme poverty: pigs! By raising and selling pigs, they will add to their family income. You can donate $80 and buy a pig for them to raise!

We cannot enumerate the number of people Susan has touched or assign value to her work. Her influence extends to the world and to generations to come. We are extremely grateful for her influence and support of Big Ocean Women.