Well, it’s official: I have been promoted to full Professor
@ucl
I am well aware of what this means; that as a Black Woman I am one of a few. To the students over the years who told me it meant the world to see me at the front of a room- I am still here.
The reason I find academia so hard, is I am wired for a kind of love that this place cannot sustain. I think of ways to cite colleagues, to lift them up, to support them. All the time. It is not reciprocal with so many others. I find it painful. I'm not sure how long I can last.
Wow. As of Oct 1st, I’ll be an Associate Professor in Global Health
@UCLGlobalHealth
. Being 👩🏽 and an activist in
#academia
is only possible through the love and care I have received. Thank you from the bottom of my ❤️. The struggle to change
#globalhealth
continues ✊🏾
No, you may not do this. Sorry, but you may not. Your policy 'recomendations' contributed to the disproportionate death of black people in western countries - particularly in the US. So, ABSOLUTELY NOT.
"The comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right." - Dr. Martin Luther King
Hey JCVI - just how many children need to die for you to wake up? Just curious what your number is. Oh, and if you will be planning to personally apologise to all the families who must bear the unimaginable grief of losing a child while you dither and delay?
I have felt for a long time that mental health is as much about the worlds we live in, as it is about the mind. My plea for how we build this into our
#Covid
#mentalhealth
response is out today in
@nature
👇🏾
I have noticed scholars who know me, and my work, write about things I have published on, innovated - without citing me. This is how the erasure of black women's scholarship happens - by the people who claim to be your colleagues. I see you, and my memory is long.
This is bad. on so many levels.
The anxiety of people in England, is well founded & rooted in BAD policy. There is NO MEDITATION APP that is going to fix government failings. Channel your anxiety into action - write/call your MP, fill their inbox. Remind them who they work for.
As
#COVID19
restrictions ease, some of us may be feeling a bit anxious.
The
#EveryMindMatters
website shares 11 tips to cope with anxiety about returning back to normal:
I finished it. Since signing the contract, I : got married. buried a father in law. changed jobs twice. had a baby. had long covid. lost a baby. buried my father. Now it may be messy but a full draft is FINALLY done.
@KerryatAuckland
some holiday reading coming your way soon.
A US Christian legal organisation + a Texas-based think tank linked to the Great Barrington Declaration are among those promoting anti-lockdown +
#vaccine
hesitancy messages in
#Uganda
. Joint
@allthecitizens
+
@openDemocracy
investigation by me +
@SoitaKW
More good news - I will be joining the new and already fantastic editorial board team at
@PLOSGPH
- as a section editor for Global Mental Health. I am SO excited for this opportunity to push the boundaries in so many ways.
Thank you all for the encouragement - and the love - and the reminder, that we need to build and find our communities. Perhaps after a real rest (coming up soon) I'll be better able to see (and remember - because I have some brilliant humans out there) who are in mine ❤️❤️✊
England’s New
#COVID
strategy fails at basics of health communication strategies. Much worse- just like every global health crisis before - it individualises risk and ignores structural and relational environments that determine behaviours and outcomes.
Things I never thought would happen
#3
,217 - my work being profiled in
@TheLancet
Thank you Rachael for finding a way to turn my pregnant brain rambles into a coherent story of me , so far 🙏🏾
COVID IS NOT OVER. All that's gained, from a desire to believe this, is wave after wave after wave.
What do we need for people to care enough, for this to end? Must loss touch each and every one of us directly? Surely we are better than this.
After I recovered from covid, I lost a pregnancy; a baby we wanted; a sibling for Theo. Yet, I still didn't know it was
#BabyLossAwarenessWeek
. This is how far the topic is from our collective conscious. Read this, share it, change this (N.B it may be triggering for some).
It's baby loss awareness week. So many people I know have been through miscarriage, which can be a devastating experience. Here is the best article I have read on the subject
This is the only thing I have written, then when I read it again, I don't want to throw it in the bin. Perhaps because it is full of my feelings, full of me. Which is so hard to achieve in academic writing.
I hope you enjoy it.
“Perhaps, as we look for new ways to ‘fix’ the discipline, we can lean into the complexity of the wake, and ... accept the uncomfortable path which works in search of social change in true partnership with the voices of everyday people”
New Editorial ➡️
Theo: mummy what day is it?
Me: Monday
Husband: and international women’s day!
Theo: what’s that?
Me: once a year the works celebrates that women do amazing things and don’t get paid for it.
Theo: that’s not fair.
Not sweetie, it isn’t.
HAPPY NEWS: I have been named in the
#CWIGH
2020 Canadian Women in Global Health List !! (which makes me miss home even more) The list formally launches at the Canadian Conference in Global Health, next Tuesday afternoon & you can still register.
Well there you have it. The pecking order of British society. Verified in numbers. If you aren’t weeping, like I just spent the past 30 minutes, then you don’t get it. Is this
@ONS
data enough to act? Or do we still need more?
#COVID19
#racism
#inequality
Losing a pregnancy breaks your heart in ways you can't fathom, until it happens. Then it is shrouded in secret & you are often alone, feel guilty about feeling sad, and sad about feeling guilty. Thank you
@chrissyteigen
for making space in your grief, to help make space for ours.
Let me clearly, and without hesitation, say: NO. A THOUSAND TIMES NO
The solution to a broken social world, is not gene editing. It's the repair of the social world.
I have not advertised the publication my book, because more important things are happening. But if I had to pick one accomplishment for 2023 it’s this. I hope the world finds some use for it.
Also: Free Palestine, and Ceasefire now.
"Listening to those who have the most at stake will pave the way for much needed change and widespread engagement with and support for COVID-19 vaccination campaigns." - our plea for people power to enable uptake for a (people's) vaccine out in
@TheLancet
This is a really exciting appointment for me, as I am hoping to do more work on mental health and vulnerable communities in the UK and Europe - helping translate innovations from the global south in these spaces. Watch this space ! (ok, bye!)
It's an honour and a privilege to have been awarded one of the
@UKRI_News
@ESRC
@NewtonFund
awards to develop
#community
led approaches to improving mental health systems in Colombia for those affected by the conflict. Read our press release at the link below to find out more !
Improving local mental health services for those affected by conflict is a Colombian national priority. We're proud to work with
@GobiernoUAndes
+
@LSE_PBS
using
#ParticipatoryActionResearch
to design community mental health services from the bottom up: 🇨🇴🇬🇧
Over the past two years we have been working on a project to highlight the mental health consequences of the Home office Windrush scandal funded by
@GrandChallenges
now, we share the fruits of this work, at a month long exhibition at
@bcaheritage
(1/2)
Thinking today about the english teacher who read my stories aloud when I was too shy to celebrate myself. She changed me. Tell your teachers that you appreciate them. That they changed you (if they have). Acknowledge their labour to make you feel seen. I wish I had done it more.
Tomorrow I am to have a routine surgical procedure, that should not cause me distress. Except I know the disregard the medical profession has for black bodies, especially female bodies, my inability to control that, and I am STRESSED. This is the Psychological labour of racism.
I just had a paper I have been working on SINCE 2016 accepted for publication in one of my FAV journals -
@HPP_LSHTM
It's about exactly what we mean when we use 'community' in relation to women's
#MentalHealth
- and the challenges & opportunities that raises. Stay tuned!!
@jasonhickel
Don't call it depression my friend. Then they will try to 'treat' it. And we don't need 'treatments' for failed social systems, we need to imagine and build new ways of living.
The fact that we haven’t solved HIV/AIDS tells you everything you need to know about COVID and our end date. These things are political, structural. We make and sustain pandemics through politics and the misuse of power. We also deserve better
#WorldAidsDay2021
NEW PUBLICATION: When I say communities, this is what I mean. We worked with over 300 people to identify priorities, understand power dynamics, and aspects of the trial design. Hopefully this is helpful to others
We do not have the time for this kind of foolishness. Seriously. Get it together, then go read Walter Rodney's "How Europe Underdeveloped Africa" and then come back and apologise.
Listening to history. Black women are making history. No matter our political differences, we fought and bled and died to get to this moment. Black women did this. We have a long fight ahead of us, but tonight let’s take a breath and celebrate.
#CiteBlackWomen
👏🏾📚✍🏾💕
On the list of things I’ll be doing before I go on maternity leave, is the official launch for my book 📕- please join me in conversation with some brilliant women in the global health space. Details below 👇🏾
Let me make this clear: WEAR A FACE MASK BECAUSE THESE PEOPLE DO NOT CARE IF YOU LIVE OR DIE, THIS IS A MAN WHO IS TRYING TO SAVE HIS OWN ASS. Case levels are NOT low enough to justify ending masks in enclosed spaces. Mother of mercy.
Boris Johnson scraps Plan B restrictions:
😷facemasks will no longer be compulsory fr Jan 26
🧑🎓they won't be required in classrooms fr tomorrow
💻guidance to work from home ends
💉vaccine passports axed
@MissChisomo
Yes. I took my two year old around the British museum (pre-covid) and told him, very loudly "EVERYTHING IN HERE IS STOLEN." The looks I got gave me so much joy.
I will say this again for the people at the back: there is no such thing as a hard to reach community. There are only excluded communities who are tired of being mistreated by bad systems, bad research etc. PLEASE fix your framing.
This thread will break your heart. And fill the cracks with rage. And hopefully remind you why the people who made things as bad as they are, must be held accountable.
My brother died yesterday from covid, he was 56 years old.
My last day with him was at my local hospitals ICU.
Me, my sister and his family were called and were told we needed to go quickly to say our goodbyes to Cameron.
We all got there as quickly as possible.
More than 3000 people follow me, which if you think about it, feels unreal. I know that's small in some worlds, but for a hippie/scientist who mostly rants about our need to do better, it means a lot. Thank you !!
Twenty years ago I graduated high school. If you had told me this kind of happiness was in my future I would have laughed in your face. Thank god for good therapy.
Communicating risk and ways to reduce harm is so important right now - it was a treat to work with Drs.
@ZekeEmanuel
@DrPhillipsMD
@COVID19Consult
on a way to approach activities & things to consider. Addressing opportunities for improvement can help guide change
@Nadine_Writes
The levels of failure here. THE LEVELS. Of course he can't tell black people apart. That is standard. BUT YOU CAN'T TELL ME THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FOOTBALL AND RUGBY?? IN THIS COUNTRY???
@kelechnekoff
It was the description of the bracelets for me man. The gold bangles. I could hear them tinkling as she walked around the classroom. How black women make people, save people, lawd.
10 yrs ago my PhD argued for the need to broaden how we define the social in Global
#mentalhealth
. Today, along with amazing colleagues, we lay out how to achieve this globally through social interventions in
@TheLancetPsych
Read more here-
I wrote this with
@netshrink
and
@PCollins_gmh
on the hardest day of my life - before giving my father’s eulogy. Thinking about his life and his struggles with mental health and society, was the starting place for this panel. Maybe if you write with your soul, the world listens.
"...under the wrong set of social circumstances, everyone is vulnerable to mental health problems."
#WorldMentalHealthDay
: prioritise social justice, not only access to care—a Comment by Soumitra Pathare
@netshrink
and colleagues.
It’s finally out !! Our critical review takes a snapshot of global mental health and how the idea of community is used, in interventions across Africa. Lots to learn, and further to go, to have community be as transformative as it could be. Free access:
R is our school's top English student. She got 9 at GCSE. She got A at AS. She is studious, precise, deeply thoughtful. She has just had her A Level grade reduced from A* to C, apparently just because she goes to a disadvantaged school. It might help if you liked her poem.
Being an academic is hard. Being an academic and a mom is hard. Being a pregnant academic and a mother is nearly impossible.
Add to that social justice work and I’m just impossibly exhausted. If I owe you something and it’s late - I am deeply sorry.
The last three years have included my fair share of loss. Two weeks ago, we survived what could have been a fatal crash - unharmed.
So I am reminded there is work to be done; there is love to be given, and joy to be had. And that is really all that matters.
3 days post c-section, I couldn’t move or lift my baby on my own. I dare not imagine the last moments of his wife, as she tried to help her babies.
What have we done with our humanity? We shall forever be ashamed for what we have allowed to happen to the Palestinian people.
Kindly Don’t skip this story🙏
Muhammad Abu Al-Qumsan was on his way to collect birth certificates for his newborn twins, ready to embrace fatherhood. But before he could return, his world was shattered. An Israeli attack claimed the lives of his wife, Jumana, and their
Every morning, I wake up.
I feel a little thump from the little girl growing in me, and I fight back tears for the women in Gaza. What have we done. What have we done.
Haven’t been able to get out of my head the fact that 50,000 pregnant women in Gaza have no access to healthcare right now. It’s unimaginable, the amount of stress & trauma they’re experiencing. 5,500 are supposed to give birth this month. Bringing new life, surrounded by death.
The current people in office, are not fit for purpose. In fact, they are the exact opposite. They are dangerous. This is beyond dangerous and the only way to stop them, is to vote. Seriously.
Infection control has been subject to political fiddling throughout the pandemic - I guess there's some solace in the fact there's it's no longer hidden: open hostility to efforts to protect the most vulnerable, in the name of efficiency.
"In current times, where the world is largely full of antagonistic forms of collective activism and organising, love, care and quiet engagement based on the discovery of shared histories and truths could prove a healing tonic for us all." (2/2)
@Telegraph
Step 1. APOLOGISE TO THE FAMILIES OF THOSE SIX CHILDREN.
Step 2. APOLOGISE TO THE FAMILIES OF ALL THE CHILDREN WHO HAVE DIED.
Step 3. Stop being so horrible. just, STOP BEING SO HORRIBLE.
I've been telling my global health students something like this for ages: work to put yourself out of a job. The goal is one day, you don't need to be there. The goal is transformation. Everything else is maintaining the status quo (That's also the final sentence in my book)
As I’ve said many times, you cannot be an “expert” on health issues experienced by a community that you do not belong to. Your job is to provide opportunities, resources, & training to people from that community so they can lead. Anything else is colonialism.
@RogerEllens_
@rashaabdulhadi
@AdeolaNAderemi
Liberation happens when enough people make enough noise to establish the political will to change course. It is entirely within our power. Every civil rights movement has happened because everyday people said enough is enough. Every. Single. One. Donations are distraction.
It’s next week !! 🤯 For those in farther flung places - there is now a zoom link to join my book launch. Details/link to register on the eventbrite page 👇🏾
COVID deaths are disproportionately spiking in Black + Brown communities.
Why? Because the chronic toll of redlining, environmental racism, wealth gap, etc. ARE underlying health conditions.
Inequality is a comorbidity. COVID relief should be drafted with a lens of reparations.
@ztsamudzi
@ProfSunnySingh
The way they refuse to allow this woman any peace was my full realisation of just how racist this country is. And I study racism in health services here, and this was still a shock.
Well it's official ! I'm excited to work alongside
@CharleneSunkel
and
@NeuroKMC
to create a new space in the academic landscape to advance - and challenge - the status quo in mental health sciences. Stay tuned ! But also read more here:
It's possible to get schools re-opening right. All we require, is a government that actually cares about children, to set out policy in line with evidence, rather than their opinions.
This would remove citizenship from me & my son, who is punished for having a Non-British born mum- probably for reasons benign as disagreeing with horrible policies like this. It passed today, while we watched a woman cry for apologising for her awfulness. Many more will weep.
Nationality and Borders Bill: 'two in every five people from non-white ethnic minorities (41%) are likely to be eligible for deprivation of citizenship, compared with just one in 20 people categorised as white (5%).' -
@NewStatesman
This is an AMAZING example of what global health SHOULD be. This is the transformative power of meaningful co-production and research that aims to be transformative through power sharing from the start. The magic bullet? TIME. humility. Power transfer. READ IT 👌🏾👍🏾
New paper in
@GlobalHealthBMJ
- Bridging Western and Indigenous knowledge: lessons from Mexico
/Indigenous communities have complex bodies of knowledge, but Western health services approach them as vulnerable people in need of external solutions./
@LeighanRenaud
Nah sah. That nah go mek it. This whole thread makes me remember so much, and the violence of these spaces. I'm sorry. Your son is a King. ❤️❤️❤️
Working on a paper, (second round of revisions) where a reviewer refuses to let us name the UK as a hostile environment for asylum seekers.
Lord give me strength.
Did Lots of tweeting about
#WindrushDay
today incl. rage about the scandal. I also lost followers. Followers are the new metrics of academic performance. My pain & truth drives my passion for my work. I can’t separate them. Not anymore. Come what may, I guess.
#BlackintheIvory
I wrote this paper alongside women I admire, using theory and frameworks absent from the global health space. It starts with a quote by AUDRE LORDE. I wrote through long covid, and a miscarriage. It was worth it. Thank you
@vanyaradzayi
and
@FariraiG
for trusting me w/the Nhanga
Decolonising the ‘safe space’ as an African innovation: the Nhanga as quiet activism to improve women’s health and wellbeing by
@vanyaradzayi
,
@FariraiG
&
@thewrittenro
@MarcusRashford
is a brilliant person who has inspired us to act & reminded us what community can do. But we can't stop at local mobilisation. That is what the government wants - for US to clean up THEIR mess. Community spirit also means we push the government to BE BETTER.
I often tell my students that change happens when you hold complexity and sit in the discomfort. THIS is a master class in precisely that.
The kids (if I can be forgiven for calling ya’ll that) will be alright. Maybe I can retire now.
Since
@GlobalHealthBMJ
doesn't want the world to hear about Global Health's silence during genocide, we will bring it directly to the people. We do not deserve to be called "Global Health" in the face of genocide. A short thread below 🧵
In 2012 during my PhD I co-edited a special issue about the problems of global mental health and the way forward. It was a fringe idea at the time- something that critical voices read, but not others. Seems time to remind the world that it’s out there
@kelechnekoff
Some things:
1. The way that you are able to remain calm in these situations is basically poetry in motion.
2. No one understands what it means to LIVE something. That statement on 'their perception' made me want to throw my phone.
3. Tell me where you got those earrings from
Not a single person who has studied health communication or public health would have agreed to this. We are being led by a bunch of incompetent fools and it makes me want to weep, and gives me chest pains.
as someone who researches public health policy, I'd like to say for the record that this campaign is irresponsible, unethical, victim-blaming bullsh*t
we need to push back on this individualist model of covid-19
New publication alert !! COURRAGE+ is something I am SO proud to have been a part of. Treatment spaces CAN include action on poverty. And low and behold -
#mentalhealth
improves. Check our
#openaccess
article, and watch this space!
Feeling loved for my 40th birthday- and it started early yesterday with love from my
@UCLGlobalHealth
family. Thank you all for making me feel so loved !
@prospect_uk
@KateClanchy1
I actually think an apology to the women of colour authors who have been abused, attacked and harmed by your actions, would go a long way. Why can't you see that? What you have written here, puts them in even MORE danger. Why can't you see that???