The Geneva Learning Foundation is pleased to announce that the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO) has just launched its Scholar programme with an inaugural course in Spanish on the topic of electronic immunization registries (EIR).
If you would be interested in taking this course in English or in French, please complete this form to express your interest.
If you are a Spanish speaker or work with Spanish speakers, you will find the full course announcement via this link. Please share this call for expressions of interest with your trusted colleagues and networks.
“I would like to join hands with other Scholars to create a data improvement plan that will improve the quality of data in Lagos and in Nigeria as a whole.”
Simisola Abedeji, Data Assistant, WHO, Nigeria
Over 600 professionals from 53 countries connect to lead transformative change towards the global immunization goals.
GENEVA, 1 JULY 2019 – The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) today launched the first-ever exercise of its new Impact Accelerator. Open to all Alumni working on immunization, over 600 alumni from 53 countries have pledged to create a new dynamic, transforming projects developed during courses they have taken together into measurable progress towards the global goals for immunization.
“The Impact Accelerator offers a flexible approach to support professionals on the ground working for impact better and faster, together” explains Reda Sadki (@redasadki), president of the Geneva Learning Foundation. “We noticed Scholar Alumni were, without any support from us, implementing Scholar projects in the field and spontaneously coming together in informal groups. When we performed the first impact evaluation, we found real, measurable impact from such initiatives. We realised that there was an opportunity to accelerate such change.”
Over a third of the Scholars who have signed up to the Impact Accelerator programme work at the district level. Two thirds have displayed exceptional talent and leadership in Scholar courses, serving as volunteer tutors and coaches known as “Accompanists”.
These are the professionals who together have the potential to transform global guidelines into action in the field.
The structure and activities of the Impact Accelerator were finalised through five consultative meetings with Alumni. “It was indispensable”, says Sadki, “to recognise the value of Scholars’ experience and expertise of their own contexts. They know where the children are.”
“I would like to participate in the Impact Accelerator as a country team leader. I will first and foremost want to put in place a solid Scholar group for my country that is recognized, validated and supported by the country’s immunization leadership.”
Charlotte Njua Mbuh, Data Manager and Surveillance Officer, South Regional Delegation of Public Health, Cameroon
Alongside this inaugural exercise, the Foundation has also partnered with Dr David Koffi, who is leading a GAVI-supported project to accelerate the development of a new generation of vaccination coverage survey leaders. This project to improve the quality of surveys will provide field-based training to a small group drawn from the WHO Survey Scholar programme, an 18-week course to teach the WHO Coverage Cluster Surveys Reference Manual.
About the Foundation’s Scholar Approach
The Geneva Learning Foundation’s Scholar Approach is a state-of-the-art evidence-based package for capability development required to lead complex change. This unique Approach has already been shown to not only enhance competencies but also to foster collaborative implementation of transformative projects that begin as course work and end with impact.
The Scholar Approach is being developed with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF).
GENEVA, 24 May 2019 (The Geneva Learning Foundation) – The sixteenth cohort from the WHO Scholar programme since 2016, kicking off Monday, aims to transform not one but four guidelines from WHO and UNICEF into action to reduce inequities and improve coverage.
300 immunization professionals from 51 countries were selected by WHO from over 1,500 applicants for this Level 2 Scholar certification. Alongside the course, the programme is also offering a webinar series for which over 2,200 participants have registered.
In six weeks, each Scholar will develop a context-specific action plan, drawing on the guidelines, to the extent that they are relevant and useful, but also on the experience and expertise of their peers.
One third of these new Scholars have direct responsibility for national immunization planning and another third contribute to it, with equal proportions of participants from central and district levels.
The participation of district-level immunization leaders is especially important, as this is “ground zero” where vaccination efforts ultimately succeed or fail. One in four are working at the district level.
UNICEF’s Godwin Mindra, author of the urban inequity tool kit said: “The work that we do at HQ would make no sense if at the country level it’s not translated into practical interventions. That’s why we come back to you at the country level, at the district level”
In the past, immunization training approaches have resorted to broken “cascade” or “training of trainer” models that have failed to produce the change needed to “move the needle” of immunization outcomes.
In the WHO Scholar programme, every course participant has direct access to the best available global experts, in addition to the knowledge contained in the guidelines.
Furthermore, 100 Scholars in the new cohort have more than ten years of immunization experience, providing deep experience and practical knowledge that complements the global guidelines.
Over half of each cohort volunteers to serve as Accompanists, who form a tightly-knit community of peer tutors, coaches, and mentors to welcome and guide new Scholars.
This course will be offered in French later this year, as the WHO Scholar programme is multi-lingual.
About the WHO Scholar programme
The Geneva Learning Foundation’s Scholar Approach is a state-of-the-art evidence-based package for capability development required to lead complex change. This unique Approach has already been shown to not only enhance competencies but also to foster collaborative implementation of transformative projects that begin as course work and end with impact.
WHO has used the Scholar Approach since 2016 to support country-level action planning and capability development to improve immunization outcomes:
The WHO Scholar programme’s network is growing rapidly, with 4,467 English speakers and 2,968 Francophones from 90 countries having participated in the programme’s activities.
Working together, Scholars have used WHO guidelines to develop more than 2,000 peer-reviewed, context-specific projects, with over 90% reporting that they routinely use what they learned from the programme.
Over 400 programme participants have served as Accompanists, supporting their peers and exercising leadership in new ways that challenge failed, conventional training-of-trainer and cascade models.
In some countries, Scholars have spontaneously initiated informal, self-led and motivated groupings of professionals operating across agencies that may provide a different kind of lever for systemic change than traditional top-down approaches to addressing immunization challenges.
Building on these emergent dynamics, Scholars are now being invited to join the first Impact Accelerator, working with colleagues from their country toward collaborative project implementation.
The programme is fully digital, with no upper limit to the number of participants, and has mobilized participants without having to offer per diem, travel, or hotel accommodation.
The WHO Scholar programme is being developed by the Geneva Learning Foundation and its partners for the World Health organization, with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF).
How do we increase vaccination coverage for all ages with a system almost exclusively designed for newborns and babies?
This blog post is part of a series about the WHO Scholar programme’s webinar series in May and June 2019 about reducing inequities and improving coverage for immunization. Learn more and register for the webinars…
GENEVA, 15 May 12019 (The Geneva Learning Foundation) – Over 2,200 immunization professionals from 96 countries registered to participate in the World Health Organization Scholar programme’s first open webinar series on reducing inequities and improving coverage for immunization. The inaugural webinar led by WHO’s Samir Sodha focused on immunization in the second year of life (2YL).
Watch the recording of this WHO Scholar programme webinar
Introducing the series, the World Health Organization’s Diane Chang Blanc reminded participants of the pledge that all individuals and communities should enjoy lives free from vaccine-preventable diseases. “That was part of the vision for the Decade of Vaccines,” she explained. “As we move into the next decade, we want to achieve that collectively as a global community.”
By 6 July 2019, this cohort will create hundreds of peer-reviewed, context-specific action plans to improve immunization outcomes, helping to transform WHO guidelines into action.
WHO Technical Officer Samir Sodha explained: “Today’s immunization system is currently almost exclusively designed for a one year old population. We can offer vaccines to a multiple-age population (newborns, pregnant women seniors). But, for each population, we need to develop unique strategies and platforms to get to them.”
Establishing and strengthening immunization in the second year of life offers a first step to establishing a life course approach for immunization “as it doesn’t necessarily require a new platform.” Nevertheless, Samir cautions that expanding coverage to the second year of life is not necessarily straightforward and requires a system-wide approach.
GENEVA, 23 April 2019 – The Geneva Learning Foundation (GLF) is partnering with artificial intelligence (AI) learning pioneer Wildfire to pilot cutting edge learning technology with over 1,000 immunization professionals in 90 countries, many working at the district level.
British startup Wildfire, an award-winning innovator, is helping the Swiss non-profit tackle a wicked problem: while international organizations publish global guidelines, norms, and standards, they often lack an effective, scalable mechanism to support countries to turn these into action that leads to impact.
By using machine learning to automate the conversion of such guidelines into learning modules, Wildfire’s AI reduces the cost of training health workers to recall critical information. This is a key step for global norms and standards to translate into making a real impact in the health of people.
If the pilot is successful, Wildfire’s AI will be included in TGLF’s Scholar Approach, a state-of-the-art evidence-based package of pedagogies to deliver high-quality, multi-lingual learning. This unique Approach has already been shown to not only enhance competencies but also to foster collaborative implementation of transformative projects that began as course work.
TGLF President Reda Sadki (@redasadki) said: “The global community allocates considerable human and financial resources to training (1). This investment should go into pedagogical innovation to revolutionize health (2).”
Wildfire CEO Donald Clark (@donaldclark) said: “As a Learning Innovation Partner to the Geneva learning Foundation, our aim is to improve the adoption and application of digital learning toward achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).”
Wildfire is one of the Foundation’s first Learning Innovation Partners. It is an award-winning educational technology startup based in the United Kingdom.
Described by the company as the “first AI driven content creation tool”, Wildfire’s system takes any document, PowerPoint or video to automatically create online learning.
This may reduce costs and time required to produce self-guided e-learning that can help improve the ability to recall information.
About the Geneva Learning Foundation
The mission of the Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF) is to research, invent, and trial breakthrough approaches for new learning, talent and leadership as a way of shaping humanity and society for the better.
Learning Innovation Partners (LIP) are startups selected by the Foundation to trial new ways of doing new things to tackle ‘wicked’ problems that have resisted conventional approaches.
The Foundation is currently developing the first Impact Accelerator to support learners using the Scholar Approach beyond training, with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF).
(2) Sadki, R., 2013. The significance of technology for humanitarian education, in: World Disasters Report 2013: Technology and the Effectiveness of Humanitarian Action. International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, Geneva.
