Dear Lens Readers,

MESSAGE FROM THE FOUNDING DIRECTOR

Shadi Saleh

GLOBAL HEALTH INSTITUTE E-NEWSLETTERVol 1 - Issue 4 - May 2018

The last quarter at the Global Health Institute was packed with impactful activ-ities, most of which were focused in our capacity building portfolio. The GHI Academy launched its inaugural webinar series on Global Health in Conflict, comprised of five webinars. The series attracted considerable partici-pation and engagement from international global health audience.

GHI’s Humanitarian Unit contextualized three courses focused on humanitari-an learning. This is a component of a strategic project with the Humanitarian Learning Academy aimed at contextualization of humanitarian knowledge.

Additionally, GHI organized and hosted a national stakeholder meeting to discuss mental health and NCD in fragile settings. The activity is part of the Research Unit on Health in Fragility, in which GHI is a founding partner along with Queen Margaret University (Scotland) and College of Medical and Allied Health Sciences (Sierra Leone).

Through its capacity building portfolio, GHI works relentlessly on developing our partnership with key stakeholders, organizations and funding institutes. Our aim is to generate contextualized global health knowledge, foster leaders from our region and Global South, and refine methodologies and strategies to better respond to different global health contexts.

I hope you enjoy reading this issue of the lens and we look forward to your continuous engagement with GHI

THROUGH THE LENS

• GHI HIGHLIGHTS

• GHI PROGRAMS

• GHI ACADEMY

• EXPERTS IN THE LENS

• GHI WELCOMES NEW STAFF

• GLOBAL HEALTH IN WORDS

• ABOUT GHI

• GLOBAL HEALTH IN THE ARTS

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G L O B A L H E A L T H I N T H E A R T S

Inji Efflatoun (1924-1989): Construction workers, ca 1950; Oil on carton, 67x37 cm; Courtesy of Ramzi and Saeda Dalloul Art Foundation.

A feminist and social political activist, Efflatoun’s  works were greatly influenced by the social realities of the Egyptian people, often depicting  the working-class,  typically peasants and laborers, with a special focus on women. Imprisoned in 1959 for four and a half years, she painted throughout her entire incarcer-ation, towards the end of which, the artist moved away from social realism and towards themes such as freedom, using lighter, more vibrant colors.

GLOBAL HEALTH INSTITUTE HOSTS STAKEHOLDERS' MEETINGS ON ADDRESSING CHRONIC AND MENTALHEALTH DISEASES IN FRAGILE SETTINGS

March 2018 | Beirut, Lebanon

March 2018 | New York

GHI participated in the 9th Annual Consortium of Univer-sities for Global Health (CUGH) conference "Health Disparities: A Time for Action." The conference was hosted by Columbia University, Stellenbosch University, and University of Peradeniya and took place in New York on March 16-18, 2018.

The Global Health Institute had secured an exhibition space at the Hilton New York conference venue. The booth attracted more than 300 visitors over the course of two days. GHI team enthusiastically explained to the visitors about the Institute's mission and vision as well as the ongoing work of the programs and academy.

May 2018 | Global Health Institute, American University of Beirut

h�ps://www.cugh.org/

G H I H I G H L I G H T S

The Global Health Institute and the Consortium of Univer-sities for Global Health (CUGH) are co-organizing the ‘Global Health Forum 2018: Innovative Approaches to Global Health Challenges in Low and Middle-Income Countries’. The GHF 2018 will be held in November 2018 at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon.

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The call for abstracts on scholarly work related to global health, with an emphasis on generating evidence and recommendations for contextualized innovations appli-cable to the Global South, has been released.The deadline for abstracts submissions is August 20, 2018.

GLOBAL HEALTH INSTITUTE AND THE CONSORTIUM OF UNIVERSITIES FOR GLOBAL HEALTH RELEASE THE GHF 2018 CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

https://www.ghi.aub.edu.lb/global-health-forum-2018

GLOBAL HEALTH INSTITUTE PARTICIPATES IN THE CUGH ANNUAL MEETING IN NEW YORK

On March 28th and 29th, GHI in partnership with Queen Marga-ret University and the College of Medical and Allied Science organized stakeholder meetings on “Non-Communicable Diseases and Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Fragile Settings – The Case of Syrian Refugees in Lebanon”.

This is part of the activities of the National Institute for Health Research’s (NIHR) Research Unit on Health in Situations of Fragil-ity (RUHF), composed of the three partner institutions. RUHF seeks to identify sources of resilience within formal health systems and local community processes to facilitate effective provisions for health priorities in fragile situations. These stake-holder meetings mark the culmination of the initial phase of the RUHF work in Lebanon, which aims to provide the evidential

basis for the focus on particular health issues, contexts, interventions and challenges associated with mental health and chron-ic diseases service delivery.

https://www.aub.edu.lb/articles/Pages/ghi-diseases.aspx

March 2018 | Dubai, UAE

March 2018 | New York, USA

Global Health Institute and Faculty of Health Sciences discuss health and armed conf-licts in joint pannel during CUGH 2018

March 2018 | New York, USA

The 15th Dubai International Humanitarian Aid and Development Conference and Exhibition took place on March 5 – 7, 2018 in Dubai.

In his presentation, CMP Co-director Dr. Abu Sitta discussed the technology-based Learning process and its importance in building the capacity of local aid workers in conflict settings. Dr. Abu Sitta'a talk was part of the special presentations session on "New Technologies in Conflict Medicine".

Dr. Omar Dewachi talked about the need to rebuild the health system in Iraq and the countries that have experienced conflict during an interview with Al Hurra Iraq. The interview took place at the AUB offices in New York during Dr. Dewachi’s "Ungoverna-ble Life: Mandatory Medicine and Statecraft in Iraq” book tour.

The Consortium of Universities for Global Health conference took place between 15 and 18 March 2018 in New York, USA. The Conflict Medicine Program discussed the paradigms and ecologies of war and conflict medicine in the Middle East by presenting on the work and horizons of GHI as a south-based global health institute. This panel was joint with the Faculty of Health Sciences at AUB who in turn drew on the work of the Lancet-AUB Commission on Syria and presented the imperatives for global health in conflict.

http://dihad.org/conference-program-2018/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSsTnuieA2o

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Global Health Institue's CMP Co-Director Dr. Abu Sitta discusses new technologies for capacity building in con�ict settings during DIHAD

Global Health Institute's CMP Co-Director interviewed by Al Hurra Iraq in New York

February 2018 | Beirut, Lebanon

April 2018 | California, United States

April 2018 | Beirut, lebanon

The AUB GHI hosted the first Execu-tive Board meeting for the R4HC MENA on February 19, 2018. The full-day meeting included discus-sions and presentations from the work of the different research groups on cancer in conflict, political economy of health, and building health capacity in conflict from AUB GHI, regional and international partners.

Researchers from King’s College London, Birzeit University, King Hussein Cancer Center, Hacet-tepe University, Cambridge University, and Imperial College London participated in the meeting and discussed the project progress and deliverables.

Dr. Jomaa gave two lectures in April at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) on her research work on Syrian refugees and host communities in Lebanon, as part of the Refugee Health and Asylum Seeker Health Initiative (RAHI). Dr. Jomaa introduced attendees to the Global Health Institute with a specific focus on the Refugee Health Program’s activities. Repre-sentative members from the San Francisco Department of Public Health and other organizations attended the talks, in addition to students and health professionals.

Joining efforts with the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) UK and the Syria Public Health Network, RHP research team recently released the first two publications of the study conducted on the informal provision of health services among Syrian refugees in Lebanon. RHP is currently preparing for the dissemina-tion of findings of a qualitative examination of the context-specific barriers and facilitators to the formation of this informal practice.http://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/10856IIED.pdf

The Global Health Institute's RHP Co-Director Dr. Lamis Jomaa presents her research during her visit to UCSF

The Global Health Institute's RHP publishes on the role of the Syrian informal health workforce providing care in crisis

The Global Health Institute holds the first Executive Board meeting of the Research for Health in Conflict (R4HC) in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in Beirut

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GHI ACADEMY LAUNCHES ITS INAUGURAL WEBINAR SERIESApril 2018 | Beirut, Lebanon

On April 12, the GHI Academy launched its inaugural webinar series on “Global Health and Conflict”. CMP Co-director Dr. Dewachi introduced Global Health and Conflict during the first webinar.

GHI HUMANITARIAN UNIT CONTEXTUALIZATES AND ARABIZES E-LEARNING COURSES

May 2018 | Beirut, Lebanon

As part of GHI's partnership with the Humanitarian Leadership Academy (HLA), the Humanitarian Unit contextualized and Arabized two e-learning courses. The first course "Introduction to Coaching & Mentoring" allows practitioners to devel-op their understanding of coaching and mentoring and the benefits of using them when working in an emergency response.

The second course "Learning Design & Facilitation, Level 1" focuses on the practi-cal development and application of facilitation skills and learning design in the humanitarian context.

These courses are currently hosted on KAYA, the e-learning platform of HLA, both in English and Arabic. Such initiative ensures that relevant humanitarian learn-ing and knowledge is accessible to humanitarian practitioners from the region.

https://kayaconnect.org/course/info.php?id=842

https://kayaconnect.org/course/info.php?id=910

In the second webinar, Dr. Rabih Chammay, the Head of the National Mental Health Program at the Ministry of Public Health, discussed the "Hidden Burdens of Conflict – Mental Health Challenges in the Lebanese Health System”. This webinar was live streamed during the 49th Middle East Medical Assembly in Beirut.

The third webinar was on “Conflict and the Impact on Non-Communicable Diseases” by Dr. Richard Sullivan, the Director of the Institute of Cancer Policy and Co-Director of the Conflict and Health Research Group at King’s College London.

On May 17, Dr. Sophie Witter, the Director of the health systems cluster at the Institute for Global Health and Development at Queen Margaret University, delivered the fourth webinar on “Health Systems in Situations of Fragility”.

G H I A C A D E M Y

H U M A N I T A R I A N U N I T

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COREEXPERTPROFILE-

ZIAD SHAABAN,EMBACEC Director

Ziad Shaaban is the Continuing Education Center (CEC) Director at the Regional External Programs (REP) at AUB. He was a team leader in UNDP for a major governmental project in the GCC before joining AUB in 1999. Ziad started his AUB career in the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, where he also served as a consultant for several AUB-REP projects in Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Sudan. He also served as an advisor for the Minister of Education and Higher Education in the Lebanese Government. Ziad earned his EMBA degree from AUB and was then appointed as CEC Director at REP in 2010.

From 2010 to date, under Ziad’s leadership, CEC implemented major change management initia-tives, including the Go-To-Market model, the actual catalogue and type of offerings, and above all the CEC community engagement. This attention to enriching community outreach, which came as a response to the university strategic directions, resulted in providing special programs for youth, seniors, special needs kids, NGOs, and Syrian refugees, in addition to business professionals.

CEC student community is expanding. The CEC accreditation with the Accrediting Council for Continuing Education and Training (ACCET), and the online course offerings are the next strategic goals for the AUB Continuing Education Center.

Waed Sleem MScGHI ACADEMY ASSOCIATE

Waed Sleem coordinates all activities and initiatives in the GHI academy by working closely with the academy coordinator.

Waed has an academic background in Nutrition, and is currently pursuing her Masters in Human Nutrition at AUB, with a focus on pregnancy diet and lifestyle.

She started her career pathway in the health field, specifi-cally in capacity building for health providers on nutrition. She then broadened her career scope and worked on community nutrition, engaging with multiple levels of stakeholders, including community members, health providers, and health institutes.

E X P E R T S I N T H E L E N S

G H I W E L C O M E S N E W S T A F F

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" A Counterfeit … a Plated Person …I would not be …Whatever strata of IniquityMy Nature underlie …Truth is good Health … and Safety, and the Sky.

How meagre, what an Exile … is a Lie,And Vocal … when we die …"

Emily Dickinson,American Poet

Rima Abdul-Khalek Pharm D,MSc, MPH Candiate Research Fellow

Upon the completion of her project on conflict and protracted crises under the CMP, Rima has joined the team as Research Fellow on the Cancer and Conflict. Previously, she worked in Beirut Arab University and Lebanese International University as Clinical Assis-tant Professor in School of Pharmacy.

She also worked as a research fellow at Clinical Research Institute AUB, and supported the Lancet Commission on Syria as a Graduate Assistant.

Rima is interested in epidemiological and methods research, with a focus on non-communicable diseas-es. She has worked on projects related to tobacco, refugee health, health systems and guidelines.

A B O U T G H I

G L O B A L H E A L T H I N W O R D S

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MISSIONThe Global Health Institute at AUB addresses global health challenges with a ficus on context and sustainable impact by employing an interdisciplinary approach. The primary focus at GHI are challenges that are affecting the MENA region, but have relevance to and impact on other regions in the Global South.

VISIONGHI is the regional leader and a key partner in defining and addressing the global health agenda, especially components relevant to the MENA region and other regions in the Global South. GHI will transform the global health dialogue to focus on contextualized solutions that are sustaina-ble and proportionally dependent on local and regional capacity.

The Global Health Institute at the American University of Beirut is part of AUB's new vision on health, Health 2025. GHI is the first such freestanding institute in the Midlle East and North Africa region, and one of the very few in the Global South.

www.ghi.aub.edu.lb

CONTACT US

Global Health Institute

American University of Beirut

Old Pharmacy Building

PO Box 11-0236 } Riad El-Solh | Zip code 1107 2020 | Beirut, Lebanon Tel: +961-1-350000 | ext.

4832 | ghi@aub.edu.lb

© 2018 American University of Beirut. All Rights Reserved

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