Understanding the Centrality of Children and their Protection in Infectious Disease Outbreaks

January 18, 2023 | 15:30-16:30 East Africa / 07:30-08:30 Washington / 12:30-13:30 London | Moderator: Sarah Collis Kerr | Panelists: Nidhi Kapur, Jean Syanda, Violet Birungi, Dr Alex Mutanganayi Yogolelo, Dr. Ayesha Kadir

This was the first webinar of the Child Protection and Health Integration During Infectious Disease Outbreaks series, Understanding the Centrality of Children and their Protection in Infectious Disease Outbreaks.

During this one-hour webinar, experts discussed why children are particularly vulnerable to infectious disease outbreaks, reviewed the Minimum Standards for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action, and reflected on lessons learned from recent outbreak responses.

Watch the recording:

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Moderator

Sarah Collis Kerr, Lead Technical Advisor, READY, Save the Children: Sarah Collis Kerr is a humanitarian health professional specializing in emergency outbreak response and health program coordination in crisis settings. She holds an MSc in Control of Infectious Diseases from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a BSc in Nursing. Sarah has worked in several humanitarian contexts and outbreaks all over the world including Sierra Leone and Rwanda for Ebola; Northern Nigeria; Samoa during the measles outbreak; Greece for the migrant/refugee crisis; and Cox’s Bazar for the Rohingya COVID-19 response. Before joining the READY initiative, she was the Regional Health Delegate for the Red Cross in Middle East North Africa. Sarah is deeply passionate about protecting the right to health for all, specifically women and girls. She believes strongly in the need to empower affected communities and local organizations, whilst strengthening cross-sectoral preparedness and capacity for outbreak response.

Panelists/Presenters

  • Nidhi Kapur, Child Protection Specialist, Independent Consultant: Nidhi Kapur is a protection, gender, and inclusion specialist with fifteen years of field-based experience. Motivated by a strong interest in the complexities of programming in conflict and post-conflict zones, Nidhi has been deployed to various countries as part of emergency response teams. She has worked on a multitude of issues with and on behalf of children and their communities, including in relation to infectious disease outbreaks. In addition to her work with READY to improve collaboration between the health and child protection sector, she has been commissioned by the Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action to co-author mini-guides for field practitioners working in a variety of outbreak settings.
  • Jean Syanda, Humanitarian Child Protection Advisor, Global Center Humanitarian Technical Team, Save the Children: Jean is the Child Protection (CP) lead for READY and oversees the Child Protection unit of the United States (US)-funded portfolio of Save the Children US for East and Southern Africa, the Middle East and Eurasia, and a few countries in Asia. She has 15 years of experience in humanitarian work with a focus on general protection, gender-based violence (GBV), and CP programming, having worked in many humanitarian crises and conflict-affected zones. She worked with refugees, internally-displaced persons (IDPs), and vulnerable communities, with a strong emphasize on establishing, creating, and strengthening human rights access systems to populations of concern. Her most recent work included providing technical guidance and support to and overseeing Protection projects in Nigeria, South Sudan, Yemen, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Iraq, Jordan, and Kenya.<\li>
  • Violet Birungi, Head of Health and Nutrition Uganda Country Office, Save the Children: Violet Birungi has more than 15 years of experience in the field of health and nutrition programming, management, social behavior change and communication, training, advocacy, WASH, and community health projects particularly with vulnerable groups in both humanitarian and development programming. At Food for the Hungry, Violet led the Health and Nutrition portfolio and supported the business development function there. Prior to Food for the Hungry, Violet was the Country Program Manager of MAP International Uganda. Shea also worked with Watoto Child Care Ministries as the Head of Public Health where she has fundraised greatly, designed and provided oversight to successful public health projects.
  • Dr Alex Mutanganayi Yogolelo, Team Leader, Kinshasa DRC Country Office, Save the Children: Dr Alex started his humanitarian career in local Congolese NGOs as a health advisor and medical doctor. He joined Save the Children in October 2014 to respond to the West Africa Ebola outbreak. Since then, he has held medical advisor positions with various international NGOs in Chad, Haiti, Guinea, and DRC responding to several humanitarian crises and infectious disease outbreaks such as HIV, COVID-19, and Ebola in North Kivu, Beni, and Kinshasa as the clinical lead. He now leads the Kinshasa field office for Save the Children and is also the Acting Health and Nutrition Technical Advisor.
  • Dr. Ayesha Kadir, Senior Humanitarian Health Advisor, Save the Children: Ayesha Kadir is a pediatrician and public health researcher. Her work is focused on understanding and meeting the needs of children and families in deprivation and crisis settings. Before leading the humanitarian health team at Save the Children UK, Dr. Kadir worked in pediatric emergency medicine and social pediatrics in Europe and in humanitarian settings. Her research and advocacy focus on the effects of migration, armed conflict, and other forms of violence on children and families, and in finding effective ways to protect and promote child and family health, wellbeing, and rights. Dr. Kadir has worked in east, west, and southern Africa, the Middle East, western and eastern Europe, and the United States with international NGOs, universities, governments, and the World Health Organization.

    • This event was hosted by the USAID Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance-supported READY initiative.

    United States Agency for International Development Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health, Save the Children, Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs, UK Med, EcoHealth Alliance, Mercy Malaysia

    This website is made possible by the support of the American People through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the READY initiative. READY (not an acronym) is supported by USAID’s  Bureau for Democracy, Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance,  Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA)  and is led by Save the Children  in partnership with the  Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health, the  Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs,  UK-Med, EcoHealth Alliance, and Mercy Malaysia. The contents of this website are the sole responsibility of Save the Children. The information provided on this website does not necessarily reflect the views of USAID, any or all consortium partners, or the United States Government, and is not official U.S. Government information.