Heroine Year: 2018

Malabika demonstrates female leadership in action. Her work is deeply rooted in human rights frameworks. As the Director of Research at the BRAC School of Public Health in Bangladesh she teaches, conducts research, and oversees research activities. Bangladesh has been described as an “exceptional health performer” despite low spending on health care, a weak health system, and widespread poverty. Through her work in the country, she is documenting these improvements, identifying areas of weakness, and recommending ways forward. Her work is embedded within policy and practice in Bangladesh and has real impact on the ground.

“BRAC launched a ‘maternity waiting home’ for women with high-risk pregnancy from remote villages. In 1993, a woman named Banu was admitted with her ninth pregnancy. At the home, she was restless and kept talking about how her children would suffer without her. She left after a day. Three days later, I received news that she was at the hospital with obstructed labour. The baby died and after the craniotomy, Banu had tried to walk the 6km home and passed away on the way. After this, I realized the complexity of public health and how simply addressing a patient’s clinical needs isn’t enough.”

Sabina heads the BRAC School of Public Health in Bangladesh. She has worked closely with a team on curriculum reform to continue to transform the international Masters of Public Health (MPH) program, so that students learn first-hand in the community. She’s also spent a large portion of her career dedicated to gender, sexual and reproductive health, and the health needs of people in urban slums. In 2008, she established a Centre for Gender and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights with seed funding from an UN organization, pushing for evidence-based research, laws to stop child marriage, providing a safe space for LGBTQI communities and working to develop online resources on sensitive topics.

“Whenever I felt intimidated by the brilliant and inspiring individuals I met, my father, who was always very supportive of me, would say: ‘Sabina, 99% is aspiration, 1% is inspiration.’ Basically, you don’t have to be brilliant to make a difference, just work hard, remain sincere, committed, and passionate about what you do, and your work will speak for itself.”

Audra leads earAccess, a social enterprise that is disrupting the hearing aid industry, providing hearing services (testing for hearing loss and hearing aids) that are 70% cheaper than comparable options. Today, there are 466 million people living with hearing loss, of whom 34 million are children, many living in low-income countries. earAccess has been helping provide an affordable solution to hearing loss and hearing aids for the world’s mostremote communities. Audra also helped grow World Wide Hearing, an NGO focused on helping children with hearing loss.

“As a young child, it was the moment I realized my father needed his hearing aids to hear me, and so did my aunt, his sister. That has remained with me my whole life, the knowledge that without hearing aids they would be completely isolated.” Her goal is to ensure that every person with hearing loss, no matter how poor, can reach his or her full potential.

In Margaret’s community, many people call her “mummy” as she shows tremendous support and dedication to anyone asking her for help. For nearly two decades, Margaret has worked with Reproductive Health Uganda to offer sexual and reproductive health information and counseling to different groups in her community. She is helping to improve the lives of thousands of young Ugandans by giving them the tools they desire to avoid unintended pregnancies, stay in school and live healthy, productive lives. In a country like Uganda, where 75% of the population is under the age of 30, and 1 in 44 women has a lifetime risk of maternal death, access to quality sexual and reproductive health and rights information and services from providers like Margaret have never been more important.

Margaret’s own experience of getting pregnant at 18 and having her son taken away from her inspired her to work with girls and women in her community so that they could be better informed and feel empowered. “Ignorance is the worst disease. In certain countries where girls don’t have information and where they are not empowered, they are blamed for what they have fallen into instead of helped,” says Margaret.

Christine has been the nurse in charge for Kilifi sub-county, Kenya for the past 15 years, playing a key role in Kenya’s public health system. Her supportive supervision, drive, and tireless dedication to ensure that basic care is available to those who cannot afford access to private care is a source of inspiration in her community. Many low and middle income countries have been decentralising their services from central governments and large hospitals to local governments and district health clinics. This process has been promoted for its potential to improve efficiency, responsiveness and local accountability. In practice if and how this works is highly shaped by the decisions and actions of managers at the district level; a role that is often under-recognised and that Christine has taken on at different levels.

“When we look at patients, we should not look at them only individually but also look at what’s behind them, in their homes and in their health systems.”

For nearly three decades, Dr. Rose Leke has been a leader and role model within the global health community. Her groundbreaking research encompasses broad areas of immunology, parasitology and global health, with a particular focus on malaria, in addition to her significant contributions to polio eradication across the African continent. In 2011, she was one of 6 women who received the African Union Kwame Nkrumah Scientific Award for Women, which recognizes female excellence in scientific research. She also received the 2012 award for Excellence in Science from the Cameroon Professional Society. Through her work, Dr. Leke has shown tremendous leadership in advancing gender equality and empowering women in the field of public health, science and research.

“The desire to provide solutions to health problems within my community, and the need to provide sustainable solutions by training younger women scientists.”

Anne is the country representative for IntraHealth International in South Sudan. She leads a team tasked with introducing and scaling up HIV services in the country. They have successfully worked to roll out HIV testing, prevention of mother-to-child transmission and HIV treatment services in different regions of the South Sudan. She has also supported the Ministry of Health and the South Sudan AIDS Commission to develop the necessary guidelines and strategic plan to inform HIV programming in the country.

“Put your fear and doubt aside, and you will surely discover the greatness in you. We all have it in us, but only a few have the courage and confidence to show theirs to the world.”

Claire is a community mental health nurse and also cofounded The Scoliosis Advocacy Network, which supports over 650 Irish families whose children live with scoliosis. Their aim is to ensure that every child has access to timely assessments and care and to build a community for all children who live with scoliosis In Ireland. Since their founding, Claire and her cofounder Michelle Long have campaigned tirelessly to bring change. One of their main goals is to see the lack of timely care recognised as a children’s rights issue – and they were hugely proud to welcome the Children’s Ombudsman Report on Scoliosis: Waiting for Scoliosis Treatment – A Children’s Rights Issue.

“My son Darragh was diagnosed with infantile idiopathic scoliosis at the age of two. It was a great shock to us as a family. It meant that my son would require ongoing specialist orthopaedic care for his childhood. From the outset it was apparent that although in Ireland we have world class surgeons, the long waits for treatment would mean that my son would be at risk of progression of his curve and deterioration in his overall wellbeing and health.”

Dr. Najla Al-Sonboli is the head of the Pediatric Department of Al-Sabeen Hospital for Maternity and Children. This hospital is the biggest tertiary referral pediatric hospital in Yemen. It receives patients from Sana’a, the largest city in Yemen, and all the surrounding governorates, which includes nearly 4 million people, half of whom are displaced due to war. In the face of war and grave personal risk, Najla has shown incredible resilience, working tirelessly to provide essential medical care to save babies and children’s lives, organising staff to provide voluntary services with minimal resources and being responsive to new challenges.

“Each day when you leave home you don’t know if you will be back home or not. But when I see how sick people come to the hospital, despite all the security challenges, this make me strong enough to go to the hospital to help them and stand by them.”