My name is Funmi Akinpelu, and I have just recently joined NAM as the Communities Engagement Officer covering for Jackie Ayugi De Masi while she is on maternity leave. My role at NAM is going to involve:
- Building strong relationships with African community organisations in London.
- Introducing and distributing NAM’s range of HIV treatment information resources.
- Listening and learning from staff in community organisations about the information and support needs of their service users.
- Getting feedback on NAM resources and learning how we can improve, adapt and develop resources to support Africans living with HIV.
- Working with the editorial team at NAM to make sure the expertise and knowledge shared by the community are used effectively in patient information resources.
I’m looking forward to visiting and understanding the work of many African organisations, and also introducing NAM’s range of free patient resources to them.
African Health Forum Event
During my first week of starting at NAM, I had the opportunity of attending the African Health Forum event. This brought together many African organisations across London, particularly from the London boroughs of Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark. Organisations present at the event included:
- Africa Advocacy Foundation (AAF)
- African Culture Promotions
- Asthma UK
- Brook
- Diabetes UK
- Community Outreach Network
- Ethnic Health Foundation (EHF)
- The Harbour Trust
- Lambeth Link
- Link Southwark
- Sacred Bodies FGM Project (AAF)
- Shaka Services
- Sickle Cell Society
- TB Alert
- Terrence Higgins Trust (THT)
- The Ernest Foundation
- The Food Chain
- The Prostate Cancer Charity
- The Stroke Association
- Uganda AIDS Action Fund
The African Health Forum kindly let NAM have a stand at the event, and we used this to display and share various resources, including The basics, patient information booklets, HIV treatment update and the newly published HIV and UK African communities. The event also provided an excellent opportunity to gather feedback about some new resources that NAM is planning to develop. I took copies of Testing, myths and facts, and Transmission and the law and Paul Bokelo Weyalo of Salem Health Project and Ernest Nkrumah of The Ernest Foundation were kind enough to give their comments on these resources. This sort of feedback is invaluable as it helps us, in the early stages of developing materials, to understand what is working and what isn’t. Then the editor can make changes based on these suggestions. I was grateful for their time and thoughtful insights.
During the event, there were presentations from a number of organisations including the Safer HIV Partnership and the Lewisham and Kings NHS Trust. Food Chain, an organisation which delivers food and shops for people living with HIV (PLWH), also gave a presentation. The organisation supports PLWH, and 60% of its service-users are from the African communities.
The event provided an invaluable space for organisations to share their wealth of expertise and knowledge. It was interesting, educative, fun and successful. I got to know about more organisations in South London, and I made new contacts. I look forward to going to more of these useful events.