Skoll | Community Leaders on the Global Frontlines of COVID-19

Panel Discussion

Session Description

The pandemic has exposed deep inequities in the U.S. and around the world. At the height of the pandemic in the United States, Black Americans were dying of COVID-19 at three times the rate of white Americans. Indigenous populations have had of the highest rates of COVID-19 in the U.S., and globally. These inequities are becoming even more pronounced in as rollout of vaccines begins, with historic lack of trust in governments and health providers and additional challenges to access. There are myriad innovative approaches to pandemic response at the community level, but those innovations and ideas are not being integrated into broader plans and systems. Effective pandemic response without community-based leadership will fail because of the essential need for trust and accountability at the community level. Join frontline community leaders from around the world for this timely discussion.

This session was curated in partnership with Aspen Global Innovators Group.

Time & Location

Time:

4:30 PM - 5:30 PM, Wednesday, April 14, 2021 BST

Location:

Virtual

Speakers

Tsion Ghedamu

Moderator

Senior Program Manager, Aspen Global Innovators Group, Aspen Institute

Tsion is a Senior Program Manager for the Aspen Global Innovators Group. At the Institute, she supports the Global Innovators Group in working on overlooked challenges in global health and development, especially leading the Healthy Communities Fellowship and other global health initiatives. Previously, Tsion worked in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia on an SRHR project and has also worked in global vaccine strategy. Tsion holds a Master in Science of Public Health degree in Health Policy & Management from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. She also holds a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Public Policy from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.

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Ngozi Erondu

Speaker

Co-Chair, O’Neil-Lancet Commission on Racism and Structural Discrimination in Global Health, Georgetown University

Dr Ngozi Erondu is a trained Infectious Disease Epidemiologist and health systems policy and global health governance expert. Her research has focused on strengthening disease surveillance and health systems and improving data for decision-making. She also focuses on strengthening regional leadership in pandemic preparedness and health security governance reform. Through Dr Erondu’s thought leadership and scholar activism in global public health, in both academic and research environments, she champions shifting power in global health development and empowering equitable research and funding partnerships. This has led her to be the Co-Chair of O’Neill Institute – Lancet Commission on Racism and Structural Discrimination and Global Health. She is currently the Technical Director of the Global Institute for Disease Elimination, a Senior Scholar at the O’Neill Institute at Georgetown Law University, and an Associate Fellow at Chatham House.

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Emma Robbins

Speaker

Executive Director, Navajo Water Project, DigDeep Right to Water Project

Emma Robbins is a Diné artist, activist, and community organizer with a passion for empowering Indigenous women. As Executive Director of the Navajo Water Project, part of the human rights nonprofit DigDeep Water, she is working to create infrastructure that brings clean running water to the one in three Navajo families without it. In addition to her water work, she is also the Founder of The Chapter House, an Indigenous arts space. Robbins completed her BFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and studied Modern and Contemporary Latin American Art History in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She is also an Aspen Institute Healthy Communities Fellow. Robbins splits her time between Los Angeles and the Navajo Nation.

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Denise Octavia Smith

Speaker

Executive Director, National Association of Community Health Workers

Denise Octavia Smith, MBA, CHW, PN a woman of African descent, Community Health Worker, and survivor of a rare chronic disease is the founding Executive Director of the National Association of Community Health Workers. During the COVID-19 pandemic Denise partnered with global and US organizations to center CHWs’ expertise, racial equity and authentic community-based partnership. In 2013, Denise partnered with hundreds of CHWs to achieve historic community engagement and enrollment of 30,000 residents into her state’s ACA Health Insurance Marketplace. Her research interests include building trust and relationship, patient and community-level health system governance, health insurance literacy and CHW policy leadership. Mrs. Smith is a Visiting Scholar at the Harvard Medical School Center for Primary Care, an Aspen Institute Healthy Communities Fellow, and a Robert Wood Johnson Culture of Health Leader.

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Anatole Manzi

Speaker

Deputy Chief Medical Officer & Director, Clinical Quality and Health Systems Strengthening, Partners In Health

Anatole serves as Deputy Chief Medical Officer in charge of Clinical Quality and Health Systems Strengthening at Partners In Health (PIH). In his current role, Dr. Manzi liaises with PIH-supported countries to develop and implement quality improvement and health systems strengthening strategies. His work involves engineering innovative solutions to integrate equity and quality management with clinical practice. He also serves as Director of PIH’s Learning Collaborative aiming at strengthening COVID-19 contact tracing and expanded public health response through learning and exchange series targeted to expert implementers as part of the US Public Health Accompaniment Unit. Manzi is the founder of Move Up Global, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation, striving to improve access to better health and education in remote and resource-constrained communities. His research focuses on evaluating healthcare quality improvement and innovative interventions to eradicate Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) in resource-limited settings. Dr. Manzi is assistant professor of global health at University of Global Health Equity and Lecturer on Medicine in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

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