Events

Speakers

Ingrid Lewis is a Public Health Professional. She lived with Congolese Mbendjele hunter-gatherers between 1994 and 1997 and has been visiting them ever since. Her work includes; Conducting treatment campaigns against yaws, leprosy, endemic & epidemic diseases; Research within existing public health and education infrastructures; She coordinated & assisted a team of Congolese doctors and nurses to provide primary health care measures to remote forest communities in the 1990s. Her research highlights the fact that discrimination against hunter-gatherers has an important impact on their access to health care and on their health-seeking behaviour. Together with Mbendjele healers, Ingrid set up the first mobile clinic in 1996 combining traditional remedies with generic medicines. Using pictograms, drama and role-play, she trained the traditional healers in primary health care. Ingrid is the founder and co-director of Project Bwanga which supports 13 mobile clinics run by hunter-gatherers who provide access to health care to hunter-gatherers and other remote living forest dwellers in the Northern Republic of Congo.

Dr Sunil Kaul is the founder and managing trustee of The Action Northeast Trust (ANT) based in Assam, northeast India. As a public health doctor he’s consulted on malaria, T.B , Maternal and Child Health and other public health issues with national & international agencies. He has over ten-years’ experience in the army as a medical doctor and associated with development sector for over 25 years. In its 20th year, ANT continues to work for the development of villages in Northeast India, reaching out to 900 village hamlets through our current work on education, child protection, women’s empowerment, peace building and mental health. At another level, the ant’s initiative called IDeA (the Institute of Development Action) works with other NGOs all over the Northeast to help them do what they do even better.

Runa Khan, an Ashoka fellow and Schwab Foundation social entrepreneur, is the Founder and Executive Director of Friendship. Friendship was founded drawing upon Runa Khan’s wide range of practical experiences of teaching, setting up small businesses, tourism, and communication among others. She is a published author with eight books, six on pedagogy and two on children’s stories. She is the Board Member of Global Dignity and Country Chair of Global Dignity Bangladesh and the Founder of Friendship International that is working in four European countries, fundraising and building relationships for Friendship in Bangladesh. Her work is based on simple logic, empathy, respect, deep sense of justice and innovation. She received several international awards and recognition, including Green Award by Positive Planet (2016), Schwab Foundation’s Social Entrepreneur Award (2012), IDB Award for contribution toward Women in development (2008), Rolex Awards for Entrepreneurship (2006), and Ashoka Fellowship (1994).

Host

Amali Lokugamage is a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist and an honorary associate professor in London, UK. She has been a long-standing advocate in respectful maternity care, human rights in healthcare, equality/diversity and decolonisation with particular interest in power imbalances. Amali has authored two books on birth: The Heart in the Womb and Within the Pregnant Pause. She has won several educational awards such as a UCL Excellence in Medical Education award in 2015, a UCL Education award in 2019 and a team UCL Provost Inclusion Award in 2020. She regards patient engagement/patient experience as essential in sculpting of health services.

This event was part three of a four-part series entitled: “Physical, Mental, & Planetary Health: exploring the links between the environment and health.”

Jointly organised by Flourishing Diversity, the Wellcome Centre for Cultures and Environments of Health at the University of Exeter, and the Wellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities at the University of Oxford, this webinar series brings together voices from all over the world to explore humanity’s interconnection with lands, waters, forests, and fellow species, highlighting the crucial role that biocultural diversity plays in the health of people and populations.

A recording of part one, on the relationship between climate change and mental health, can be found here. Part three will cover “Health systems, culture, and climate change,” and part four will conclude the with a discussion about “Uniting the health of people and planet: paths to a sustainable and healthy future.”

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