Join us on 15th October 2024, in a special session of End TB Dialogues on the theme: At least a century of inequities and injustices plaguing the TB response.
Thanks to multiple award-winning Maria Smilios, author of the powerful book, The Black Angels, that chronicles a true story of the black nurses who helped cure the world's deadliest infectious disease: tuberculosis (TB), CNS team led by our founder Shobha Shukla got a chance to spend time with one of the black angels, 93+ years old Virginia Allen, and also go through a powerful and life-influencing experience of seeing the exhibit "Taking Care: The Black Angels of Sea View Hospital" co-curated by Gabriella Leone (open for all in Staten Island Museum till 29th December 2024).
Panel of speakers:
- Virginia Allen, a living legend in her own self, often referred to as one of the "Black Angel" nurses for doing groundbreaking work and taking care and helping save lives when "white nurses" refused to work in Sea View Hospital for fear of contracting TB. This is a story of almost 85 years back (video)
- Maria Smilios, award-winning author, keynote speaker, and adjunct lecturer at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. She authored The Black Angels which has won the 2024 Christopher Award in literature - this book celebrates works that "affirm the highest values of the human spirit." It was also a finalist for the prestigious Gotham Book Prize and chosen as an NPR Science Friday Summer Read for 2024. The book greatly informed and inspired the Staten Island Museum’s exhibit “Taking Care: The Black Angels of Sea View,” which is on display till 29th December 2024.
- Ela Gandhi, a South African peace activist and former politician. She served as a Member of Parliament in South Africa from 1994 to 2004. She is also the granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi. She fought tirelessly to end apartheid and achieve social justice in South Africa.
- Tariro Kutadza, founder-leader of TB People (Zimbabwe) who has played a key role in a number of groups, such as Zimbabwe National Network of People living with HIV (ZNNP+) among others. She is also part of Union Community Advisory Panel of the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union).
- Dr Tara Singh Bam, who has relentlessly called for people-centred health responses to connect the dots between TB and other health and development issues. He currently serves as Asia Pacific Director for Tobacco Control at Vital Strategies. One of his seminal contributions is in mobilising sub-national leaders including Mayors and Members of Parliament to unite for health and development - which led to the formation of Asia Pacific Cities Alliance for Health and Development (APCAT). Dr Tara Singh Bam also served as Asia Pacific Director of International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union) till very recently.
- Sumit Mitra, is a force to reckon with on shining a spotlight on a less-talked about deadly divide between the Global South and the Global North. He has long-called for addressing the inequities and injustices that plague the health responses. He has devotedly worked for decades in helping ensure best of diagnostic tools reach those who are most likely to be left behind. Making health technologies accessible to the most marginalised and impoverished has been a driving mission for him. He serves as President (International Sales), Molbio Diagnostics - makers of Truenat - the only WHO recommended point-of-care, laboratory independent and decentralised molecular test for TB (and it also tests for over 40 more diseases).
- Shobha Shukla, has dedicatedly worked on advancing gender justice as an integral part of health justice and broader development justice since last 5 decades. She taught physics in India’s prestigious Loreto College for ~30 years and founded CNS to focus on communication, policy and advocacy on development justice (based on the principle that gender justice, health justice, social justice, economic justice, redistributive justice, climate justice, and accountability to peoples are interdependent and critical to save our human race and our planet). She firmly believes that the only way forward is a feminist fossil-fuel free future where decent wages and sustainable livelihoods become a reality for all - in a socially just and ecologically sustainable manner.
