Blending research and public speaking with Aloyce Paul Urassa
Aloyce is a malaria advocate and scientist from Tanzania. He found his calling during his studies, where he saw first-hand the impact of malaria, and has focused his personal and professional life on bringing an end to the disease ever since. We sat down with Aloyce to talk about what brought him on this path, and how one can achieve change at their scale.
Why did you become an advocate and why did you become a scientist?
I have always been interested in science and medicine, and enrolled in laboratory science for my undergraduate studies. In the mid of my studies I found a need to do something about malaria, without really knowing what it could be. I started working on asymptomatic malaria cases at the time, thinking of different ways to stop malaria transmission.
That led me to attend a training on malaria and health systems strengthening, and the training was eye-opening. It made me reflect on my own experience of malaria, seeing my brother taken out of school for weeks because of it, and knowing that it killed many before they turned five. And it motivated me to do more research, and realized that we had eliminated malaria in many countries, and yet it had been ongoing for thousands of years in many more.
From there, it has refocused my personal and professional objectives. I see the need for more new tools, innovations and integrated approaches to end the disease, the will to deploy them, and the funds to do so. I have decided to fight on all these fronts.
How did you try to do that?
I want to go beyond just my work as a scientist and train myself as a public speaker. To me, it is the way to give back to communities, by bringing their voices in places where it is not being heard. Seeing ideas coming from the ground being picked up by experts and high-level leaders is key to getting them implemented, and being a strong speaker is often a first step towards that.
I am involved in a number of initiatives and organizations – the GFAN Speakers Bureau of course, but also the ALMA Youth Advisory Council and Rotarians Against Malaria Global– and these are all chances to sharpen my skills as a speaker, and opportunities to get access to high-level forums to put these skills to use. I feel that I can already see the changes I brought to the world, and I am proud of that. Powerful local advocates are essential in the fight against malaria, as they bring to life political will. Malaria is a silent killer, it doesn’t kill large numbers at once like COVID-19 and bring fear, it works slowly but surely, it’s only once you look at the numbers after a year that you realize how big the burden is. That’s why we need advocates and champions that will act timely and carry the message where it needs to be heard.
You are quite young, do you feel that it informs your advocacy?
Yes, very much. Youth Engagement is really important for me, and because I see how young people bring solutions for now and the future. Malaria has been here a long time, and if we want to beat it we need our responses to last a long time too – and youth is the key to sustainability. Young people also bring creativity, they find new, innovative solutions, that we really need to end malaria.
And there are all sorts of other benefits to active youth engagement. Being a young person is an open opportunity to learn more and do more actively. Engaging young people like myself is the best way to safeguard the future by creating the next global public health leaders that will effectively end malaria and handle the next pandemic. Being young should not be considered a barrier but rather an opportunity in global health advocacy. Indeed, we are a generation that can end malaria and ensure better life for all.
This is the second time you mention COVID-19 or the next pandemic. You think that the malaria response is relevant to these questions as well?
Of course, malaria is a pathfinder to pandemic prevention, preparedness and response. The malaria response carries essential lessons for it. If we want to build more capacity, strengthen resilience at the local level, build new laboratories and manufacturing capacity – all these questions have been tackled by the malaria response over the years, all we need is to speed up the efforts and broaden coverage. The same investments that are needed in the fight against malaria are at the center of the pandemic preparedness discussions – and the same is largely true for tuberculosis and HIV. What we need everyone to realize is that you cannot prepare a new health response if you have weak health systems.
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