An interview with Dr Sandro Demaio on Advocacy & Campaigning in Global Health

Oh poor neglected blog! Here's an interview i recently did with Dr Sandro Demaio on advocacy and campaigning for the CSGH blog.

Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to talk with us! Can we take you back to you first experience of advocacy and campaign, when was it and what was it on?

I think I was always a campaigner. In fact when I was 7, I remember baking cookies and then walking about the streets near my house selling them door to door with two friends. We were “raising money for Africa” I think a little naïve, but quite a fun start now looking back.

As a medical student, my first big campaign work was as the President of the Asian (and Pacific) Medical Students’ Association and on the Board of YEAH, Australia’s peak HIV and sexual health awareness organisation. Both experiences really tested my skills in public speaking, communication, leadership and engaging with wide, diverse audiences on some challenging topics.

Joining the dots: nutrition programme delivery and health systems strengthening

This a repost from the CHGH_blog where this week the focus is on health systems, you can find the other articles here. Enjoy!

It’s an exciting time to be involved in nutrition. Over the past decade, increased political attention - and of course funding - has enabled the field to take great strides. Yet there is still some way to go to reach the 2025 targets set by the World Health Assembly, and to ensure the post-2015 sustainable development goals for nutrition are, highly ambitions yet achievable.

Looking beyond your bubble

Starting a career in Global Health is both daunting and exciting; in a field so vast there are endless avenues open for exploration. Setting out we have at the forefront of out minds to remain open minded and to strive for a multidisciplinary outlook, yet this may not be such an easy reality as our careers progress and our focus narrows. So how do we ensure as we maintain this broad vision, and continue to see beyond the periphery as we move throughout careers?

What happened to a healthy balanced diet?

In the U.K if you’re overweight or obese then you’re part of the norm. In fact 3 in 5 adults are overweight or obese, and even more worryingly 19% of children aged 10-11 years are obese. But before you start thinking the U.K. is special, we’re in good company; France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Czech Republic and the U.S.A, are just a few begrudging members of this club, and many other nations are fast approaching the enrolment threshold.

All too often the blame for this phenomenon is laid at the feet of the individuals, who are; ‘too lazy’, ‘too selfish’, ‘too ignorant’. But I find this attribution of blame pretty hard to take. Do we really believe the vast majority of our population has become so apathetic towards their own health and wellbeing that they just don’t care? I think not.

The Deadly Foundations of the Beautiful Game

As the dust settles on the 2014 FIFA World Cup, football fans can look back on an exciting tournament, even if some of our teams didn’t exactly fulfil all of our hopes. However, beyond the pitch it’s not been a particularly great year for FIFA or the brand of football in general. 

Activism or Slacktivism: has the ice bucket challenge been a success?

If you’ve visited facebook anytime recently then you will no doubt have come across a video or two of friends dousing themselves in ice cold water. The ice bucket challenge is a campaign with the aim of raising awareness of, and funding for, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), or as it is often referred to in the U.K., Motor Neurone Disease (MND).  In the past weeks the challenge has gone viral with millions putting themselves through mild discomfort, with the hope of fulfilling these aims. The campaign, however, has not been without its critics, so I felt compelled to write this and perhaps shed light on a few misconceptions, and say why I think the ice bucket challenge has in part been a great success, but why it is also likely to be a short lived one.

Polish health cares long & winding road

It’s 4 weeks since I arrived in Krakow, Poland, on a 5-week field trip that represents the culmination of year 1 on the MSc Global Health programme.

Having been offered the opportunity to travel to either Tanzania or to Poland, I elected to come here to Krakow. The decision, in hindsight, wasn’t that difficult. In 2010/11 I spent some time working in Gambia and Kenya, I loved living both and am sure I will return at some point in the near future.  So there is perhaps a sense of irony - with Poland being less than 2 hours flight from Copenhagen – that I felt this may be one of my only opportunities to come and explore and work in a Central European country.