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About Neglected Tropical Diseases

Neglected tropical diseases, or NTDs, are a group of debilitating infectious diseases that affect over 1.6 billion people worldwide. They disable, disfigure and sometimes kill – keeping children out of school, adults out of work and trapping communities in endless cycles of poverty.

About Youth Combating NTDs

Youth Combating NTDs is a global community of young people who are fighting against Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs). This youth-focused and led initiative, is designed to mainstream the participation of young people within the NTD community across all its activities. Youth Combating NTDs is an initiative of Uniting to Combat NTDs.

The Youth Advisory Board

Youth Combating Neglected Tropical Diseases, is currently looking for young exceptional people to join its Youth Advisory Board, to develop and drive a youth strategy as well as directly advise the Neglected Tropical Disease community on its policies and programmes relating to youth.

Roles & Responsibilities:

The Youth Advisory Board will help to improve the relevance, mobilization and outreach of different NTD initiatives among young people in endemic and donor countries.

The Board will help the community to improve its response to the needs of youth.

The Board will have a strategic advisory role, working closely with Uniting to Combat NTD’s and other stakeholders working in WASH, Diagnostics, Pharmaceuticals and Government.

The Board will contribute to increase the level and quality of youth participation in the planning, implementation and monitoring of NTD related programmes.

The Board members will represent the youth voice and serve as external faces of the community on various fora which include events, meetings, field visits and media

Board Composition

The Board will consist of 12 members aged 18 to 35 years, who are working or involved with local youth and/or professional organizations in various capacities, in countries were NTDs are prevalent and in donor countries.

Eligible candidates will be identified through an open call based on their work and background in one of the following areas (or any other relevant areas):

• Academic
• Advocacy
• Business – Social/Impact/Other
• Education & Youth Development
• Health
• Living with/survivor of one or more NTDs
• Media
• Philanthropy
• Policy

Eligibility Criteria

Board members will be selected based on fulfilling the following criteria, with further information to be given to selected candidates:

• Ages between 18-33 at the time of application.
• Language capacity to understand development concepts and to articulate them clearly (in English).
• Preference will be given to those with strong communication and/or advocacy skills in order to ensure strong youth voices and active participation in meetings.
• Represent a diversity of age, racial and geographic characteristics and an overall gender balance.
• Commitment to support follow up actions and recommendations as outcomes of the Board discussions.
• Willingness to commit personally to the Board’s work and to have the flexibility and availability to participate in meetings and other activities pertinent to the work of the Board.
• Willingness and ability to travel domestically and internationally and possess valid travel documents.

How to Apply

Interested candidates are invited to apply online via this link

Applications close on 30 April 2020.

The End the Neglect campaign aims to raise awareness and call for action on the elimination of NTDs.

As global health efforts to tackle the current coronavirus outbreak intensify around the world, health advocates for a lesser-known — but just as important — group of diseases launched a new global campaign.

Health organization Uniting to Combat NTDs launched its year-long End the Neglect campaign at a meeting alongside the World Health Organization (WHO) in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, on Thursday to raise awareness and call for action on the elimination of neglected tropical diseases (NTDs).

NTDs is a term used to describe a group of parasitic and bacterial diseases that have serious side effects. They can blind, disfigure, and debilitate people, according to the WHO.

As their name — and the End the Neglect campaign — suggests, these diseases are neglected, in large part due to the fact that they are diseases that primarily affect those living in poverty.

The campaign kickoff coincides with the launch of a new organization — Youth Combating NTDs. It is a youth-led initiative, spearheaded by Uniting to Combat NTDs and Future Africa Forum, that seeks to empower, engage, and support young people in their efforts to tackle NTDs.

The youth participants convened in Dar es Salaam to participate in the launch of this global movement.

“I have been a youth advocate for NTDs since 2016, and in April 2017, while at a Gates Foundation event celebrating progress being made in NTDs, I made a commitment that I would engage more young people in the fight against NTDs,” Gerald Chirinda, founder of Future Africa Forum and co-founder of Youth Combating NTDs, told Global Citizen. “This is my way of fulfilling the commitment that I made then.”

Chirinda said that 75% of the attendees at Thursday’s event were young activists from more than 13 countries, specifically from Bangladesh, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, the United Kingdom, and Zimbabwe.

Earlier this year, the very first World NTD Day was held on Jan. 30 in an effort to spark international conversations, engage everyday people, and to call on world leaders to commit to working to eliminate NTDs.

@puriitie: We should incorporate NTDs in the curriculum to realise its importance in ending NTDs #NTDFreeGeneration pic.twitter.com/wI3UYu9w6B

— Youth Combating NTDs (@YouthCNTDs) February 27, 2020

Uniting to Combat NTDs and Youth Combating NTDs now aim to continue this work throughout the year.

Shomy Hasan Chowdhury, a 25-year-old activist from Bangladesh, is one of the youth activists who have joined Youth Combating NTDs.

Having worked as a health advocate for many years, Hasan Chowdhury believes this new initiative is especially powerful because it is being led by the youth.

“We can be a powerful driving force being a crucial stakeholder in this global movement against NTDs,” she told Global Citizen. “Young people have the energy, passion, and sense of responsibility to solve the pressing problems we are facing today.”

Hasan Chowdhury has worked extensively as a water and sanitation (WASH) activist and wants to integrate WASH into the fight to end NTDs, as she believes they are interconnected.

“I have seen firsthand how young people can trigger change and be empowered. We can win this fight against NTDs faster and with greater efficiency if we involve young people directly,” she said.

This year is an especially important one as it marks 10 years to the final deadline for achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which collectively aim to end extreme poverty by 2030.

SDG 3 aims to ensure good health and well-being for all and therefore includes a significant call to action for the elimination of NTDs.

The 2012 London Declaration on NTDs brought pharmaceutical companies, donors, endemic countries, and other organizations together to commit to pushing for support and investment in tackling NTDs.

The Youth is taking the lead to combat NTDs. Great initiative by @CombatNTDs @FutureAfriForum @YouthCNTDs @whontd. Thank you @mwelentuli @ThokoPooley @geraldchirinda #NTDFreeGeneration #YouthtoCombatingNTDs #BeatNTD @ughe_org @phaedrahenley @abebesurg @agnesbinagwaho pic.twitter.com/7YpCugTm7S

— Ursin Bayisenge (@ursinbayiseng) February 27, 2020

Since then, 31 countries have eliminated at least one NTD, according to Uniting to Combat NTDs.

This year, the Kigali Summit on Malaria and NTDs, created by RBM Partnership to End Malaria and Uniting to Combat NTDs, will take place on June 25, ahead of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM). The event will provide a platform to call on world leaders to make commitments to these efforts.

There are already inexpensive treatments for many NTDs and some are close to being eliminated.

“With the launch of the new WHO NTD 2030 Roadmap during the Kigali Summit in June, this is a crucial time in the fight to beat NTDs,” Uniting to Combat NTDs said in a statement to partners about its campaign.

It added: “The Uniting to Combat NTDs partnership aims to raise awareness of NTDs in target countries, among a range of audience, to create an enabling environment for policymakers in endemic and donor countries to politically and financially commit to NTDs.”

This article was originally published by Global Citizen: https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/youth-combating-neglected-tropical-diseases/

Dar es Salaam, Tanzania – Today, Uniting to Combat Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs) launched End the Neglect, a year-long campaign set to ignite a global movement to raise awareness and inspire action to end neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). The announcement took place alongside the launch of the newly formed initiative Youth Combating NTDs, a youth-led initiative aimed at empowering, engaging and supporting young people to help tackle NTDs.

The global End the Neglect and Youth Combating NTDs announcements were featured during a high-level briefing on NTDs in partnership with the Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children and World Health Organization in Tanzania. Both the campaign and youth movement aim to end the neglect of these debilitating diseases, and to make the invisible, visible – from over 1.5 billion people affected by NTDs, to the youth voices all too often left without a seat at the decision-making table.

The global movements aim to galvanize support around several high-level opportunities for NTDs in 2020, particularly around the launch of the WHO 2021-2030 road map for NTDs at the world’s first Global Summit on Malaria and NTDs in Kigali, Rwanda, on 25 June 2020, alongside the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting. To sustain gains and accelerate progress on NTDs in line with the Sustainable Development Goals, the road map will offer a fundamental shift to focus on countries, communities and people at the centre.

“Our new 2021-2030 roadmap calls for a multi-faceted approach that focuses on the engagement, involvement and contribution of everyone for better cross-sectoral action,” said Dr Mwelecele Ntuli Malecela, Director, WHO Department of Control of Neglected Tropical Diseases. “I welcome the ‘Youth Combatting NTDs’ initiative and look forward to working with the younger generation towards a world free of these diseases of poverty”
NTDs are a group of 20 debilitating infectious diseases that disable, disfigure and sometimes kill. Thriving in areas where access to healthcare, adequate sanitation and clean water is limited, NTDs keep already disadvantaged children out of school and adults out of work, subsequently trapping communities in endless cycles of poverty and costing countries billions of dollars every year in productivity gains.

“This is the decade to put an end to diseases of poverty and double down on the fight against NTDs,” said Mrs Thoko Elphick-Pooley, Director of Uniting to Combat NTDs. “With the launch of End the Neglect, we are starting a global movement to educate and inspire people to take action on these preventable and treatable diseases. We are also thrilled to announce our campaign alongside Youth Combating NTDs, a vital initiative putting young people at the front and center of the fight against these diseases.”

Through 2020, End the Neglect will call on global audiences to learn more about NTDs and the people they impact and to amplify voices on social media, in turn empowering others to take action. The campaign will also encourage participants to sign a petition urging world leaders to mobilise US$1.5 billion towards the total cost of delivering the WHO 2021-2030 road map for NTDs.

“We are excited that Future Africa Forum got the opportunity to partner with Uniting to Combat NTDs in launching this youth movement,” said Gerald Chirinda, Founder of the Future Africa Forum. “Given that NTDs affect over 1 billion young people globally, it is only right that as young people, we are actively involved in fighting NTDs, as we believe there is nothing for the youth without the youth. This movement gives us the opportunity to begin mainstreaming the participation of youth in the NTD community.”

Youth Combating NTDs is designed to encourage the participation of young people in the fight to beat NTDs. The initiative will equip and strengthen young advocates and leaders with the necessary resources to amplify their voices and effectively shape policies to end NTDs in their communities. As the digital space is key for mobilizing Millennials and Generation Z, the group plans to leverage social media to raise awareness of NTDs, and engage and activate the global youth community.

Neglected tropical diseases (NTDs), a group of poverty-related infectious diseases, affect 1 out of 2 people in Africa, and 1.5 billion people globally. These diseases are highly debilitating, can cause life-long disability and cost billions of dollars in developing countries. Many people have never heard of these diseases despite their human and economic costs.

Another astonishing part – the infection routes are preventable, $17 billion worth of medicines have been committed by the pharmaceutical industry, between 2012 and 2020, and key interventions such as mass drug administration (MDA) are known to be effective. And yet, these diseases prevail among top causes of medical consultations and school absenteeism in affected countries. How can we connect the dots to see the end of NTDs in our lifetime?

The most affected populations live in poverty and lack adequate water sources and sanitation, putting them in close contact with infectious vectors. A report launched recently by the END Fund shows that the numbers are compelling. Over 1.5 billion people require treatment for intestinal worms, nearly 200 million suffer from river blindness and 856 million people are affected by lymphatic filariasis – one of the most painful and stigmatized diseases in the world.

The numbers are also undeniable as there are huge returns on investment. It costs less than $0.50 per year to treat someone with NTD medicines, and every dollar invested in NTD control and elimination results in $27 to $42 of economic benefit. Even more compelling, if the WHO’s 2020 goals for NTDs are met, Africa could save $52 billion by 2030 if the most prevalent NTDs are eliminated.

Countries like Rwanda have made impressive strides in reducing the prevalence and incidence of NTDs. These countries have shown what is possible with strong partnerships and high-impact initiatives. To maintain the progress toward elimination, however, requires a focus on developing key partnerships and strategies. Beyond maintaining critical interventions like MDA and education around water, proper sanitation and hygiene, below are 5 key strategies to keep in mind:

1. Sustainable solutions come from communities : affected populations understand constraints that impede prevention and control, and their active participation should be a priority for partners looking to close the gap in eliminating NTDs. Although this is not a new concept, efforts to empower these communities must be front and center and any sustainable strategy should align with their unique perspective. This implies developing strategies from within, with community members as implementers and not just recipients of programs. It is also important to include strategies for those already affected by lifelong disability due to NTDs leading to severe limitations to a productive livelihood and stigmatization.
2. Identify positive deviance in behavior change : NTDs are closely linked to hygienic practices and can be avoided through hand-washing, wearing proper footwear, and using latrines. These positive practices are often known across communities, but their adoption is not always straightforward. An example is that building latrines does not guarantee that the community will use them. In some instances, open defecation – a major infection route for NTDs – has continued even after latrines are introduced in the community. In this context, it is crucial to identify positive deviance – households or communities that have been able to eliminate NTDs despite having similar challenges – and facilitate cross-learning.
3. Economic development as a powerful incentive: fighting NTDs is a road to economic development, and the latter can be a driver for the fight against NTDs. A part of promoting behavior change could be linked with social and economic incentives. For instance, if a community can significantly increase and sustain the number of people with access to latrines, adequate water sources and hygienic practices, could that be translated into advantages towards getting out of poverty? Here, one could even posit that an impact bond model could be developed with an incentive mechanism linking investment in health to actual economic gains. It could start at  the village level with socially-minded investors ready to scale up these incentives while maintaining focus on results – avoiding re-infections and achieving elimination of NTDs.
4. Women as strategic partners: NTDs disproportionately affect girls and women which makes them key beneficiaries. However, women are also strategic partners in the front-line, to encourage compliance in treatment, advocate at the household-level to promote social mobilization efforts to fight NTDs. These efforts can also be aligned with other related programs such as early childhood development (ECD) activities to impact children – a group highly vulnerable to NTDs – from an early age.
5. Community health workers (CHW) as linkage: CHW are involved in providing treatment, carrying out surveillance and in health promotion. Their involvement facilitates complementarity with various other interventions and avoids any perceived silos. This is particularly important since there is co-endemicity among diseases within the same individual or target groups. Many countries have well established networks of CHWs that promote control and treatment of various diseases at  the community level. In Rwanda, 3 CHWs are embedded in each village to follow assigned households daily, and it has undoubtedly contributed to overall increase in health outcomes. Building the knowledge and capacity of community health workers to tackle NTDs leads to a more sustainable delivery channel, rather than a vertical approach.

Currently, major players in the fight against NTDs such as Ministries of Health, the World Health Organization and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are considering ways to further tackle remaining challenges.

A recent END Fund roundtable provided a platform to start exploring different ways to approach the issues. Sessions that bring together government institutions, private sector, philanthropy, academia and NGOs embedded in the community are great first steps.

The tools to eliminate NTDs are in place, but with the end targets in mind, are we connecting the dots?