Twitter Chat: Interactive Civil Society Hearing

Join us at #UNHLMTBchat

Date and Time: Thursday 31 May 2018 (3:00pm - 4:00pm CET)

The Interactive Civil Society hearing is part of the preparatory process for the UN High Level Meeting (UNHLM) on TB on 26 September 2018. The Interactive Civil Society hearing will provide a platform for the inclusive, active and substantive engagement of affected communities, civil society and other relevant stakeholders. Participants will have the opportunity to take part in a day of interactive panel discussions, share practical experiences from their work, and make recommendations towards the UNHLM to support and to inform Member States in the development of the UNHLM outcome document.

Stop TB Partnership is organizing a "Twitter Chat" to provide all stakeholders with an opportunity to share their concerns, views and expectations ahead of the Interactive Civil Society hearing on June 4. The Twitter Chat will include the participation of panelists and moderators of the hearing.

The Twitter Chat will include the participation of:

Blessina Kumar, CEO, Global Coalition Against TB (@blessi_k)

Blessina Kumar is the CEO of the Global Coalition of TB Activists and the voice of the affected community. A TB survivor herself, she has been a TB advocate and champion for decades. Her advocacy has shaped the TB response nationally and globally making it more people centered. She serves on several boards and committees contributing richly to ensure people-friendly policies and responses.

Allan Achesa Maleche, Executive Director, KELIN (@MalecheAllan)

Allan Achesa Maleche is a dynamic leader in the field of global health governance, with over a decade of experience in promoting ethical, human rights-based approaches to health planning, programming and service delivery. His work has substantively focused on HIV and tuberculosis in Kenya. He is the Board Member of the Developing Country NGO Constituency of the Global Fund Board; and founding executive director of Kenya Legal and Ethical Issues Network on HIV and AIDS (KELIN). In 2016, he was named Kenya's Pro Bono Lawyer of the Year.

In Kenya, Allan has used the legal framework to safeguard the rights of communities affected by HIV and TB through litigating landmark cases, including Daniel Ng’etich and Others v The Honourable Attorney General and Others, which successfully argued against incarceration of persons with tuberculosis as a public health measure;

Allan was instrumental in developing the Nairobi Strategy on TB and Human Rights in collaboration with the Stop TB Partnership and the University of Chicago International Human Rights Clinic. The Strategy outlines a human rights-based framework for achieving the Global Plan to End TB 2016-2020. He has also been a leader in developing analysis of TB and human rights, by co-hosting the first workshops to raise awareness of TB with civil society, TB survivors and affected communities, and the judiciary in India and the African region.

Prof Madhukar Pai, Canada Research Chair in Epidemiology & Global Health Director, McGill Global Health Programs (@paimadhu)

Madhukar Pai, 47, has a Canada research chair in epidemiology and global health at McGill University in Montreal, where he is also director of global health programmes. He is a member of the Royal Society of Canada and a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. He trained as a doctor in Vellore, India, and got his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley. He is passionate about eliminating tuberculosis, especially in India, where a quarter of the world’s 1.7 million TB deaths occur each year. His work on using “mystery” (simulated) patients is exposing major gaps in how TB patients are managed in many countries. TB cannot be eliminated globally without serious investments and quality improvement, he argues.

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