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December Newsletter

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Season’s Greetings! As those of us in Leeds prepare for the holidays, we wanted to share with you updates from across the CE4AMR network and to wish those of you celebrating a very Happy Christmas.

A big update from our COSTAR (Community Solutions to Antimicrobial Resistance) project is that Community Dialogues on AMR are now happening across Bangladesh as part of a Randomised Control Trial to test their effectiveness to change AMR driving behaviours. Co-Investigator, Professor Rumana Huque says “I am delighted to see that the facilitators are carrying out community dialogues in their community on AMR containment. This is really encouraging to see the commitment and support of the facilitators, supervisors, trainers and master trainers in implementing the study. I hope that the initiative will be sustainableand contribute in tackling AMR in Bangladesh” Dr Fariza Fieroze who lead the development of CDA materials and training says “I am very excited to see the facilitators who have already been trained in community dialogue approach are now conducting the community dialogue in their own villages. I am hopeful that their enthusiasm to work for their own community will make the community engagement approach successful and will have a significant contribution to the initiative to tackle AMR in Bangladesh.”

 

For World Antimicrobial Awareness Week (November 18th and 24th) we produced a series of blogs related to COSTAR. You can find a short summary below, but if you are interested in more details, head to our website and read the full blogs!

 

1. The Power of Community to Combat AMR

Written by Basudev Bhattarai, Edited by Nichola Jones

As part of the COSTAR project, we have been conducting Participatory Video (PV) workshops in in Kapilvastu district of Lumbini Province in Nepal. In these workshops, community members used video to share their stories on interactions between people and antimicrobials based on their knowledge and experience. In this blog, Basudev Bhattarai from HERD International shares reflections on how community members from two wards in the Kapilvastu district of Nepal were able to tell stories from their own communities and what could be the possible impacts of their works.

 

2. Reflections on the process of PV making about AMR in Bangladesh

Written by M.I.Shuvo, Edited by Lidis Garbovan

In a previous blog piece about Articulating PV into the CDA, colleagues from the ARK team in Bangladesh reflected on the process of conducting PV workshops with people in the community. This blog is a continuation of the reflections on the process, written by our colleague, M.I.Shuvo from the ARK Foundation, who led the workshop. The highlights of this piece are the challenges of shooting PV in rainy seasons and remote terrains and how the participants overcame these and the enthusiastic sharing of the films with local community members. You could read the full blog on our website.

 

3. How we used lessons learnt to optimize the COSTAR AMR Trainings in Bangladesh

Written by Helen Hawkings, Edited by Jessica Mitchell

The COSTAR (Community Solutions to Antimicrobial Resistance) is now entering it’s delivery phase where community dialogues will be held across Bangladesh to discuss AMR at community level. This is a huge undertaking and requires the training of several layers of facilitators to ensure the community dialogue approach (CDA) can be successfully embedded into existing structures. Over the summer members of COSTAR team convened in Bangladesh to deliver the first of these training workshops. Here Helen Hawkings (Malaria Consortium) reflects on the training process and adaptations made from the pilot study.

Antibiotic Days Conference

Dr. Jessica Mitchell presenting at the Antibiotic Days Conference

Dr. Jessica Mitchell presenting at the Antibiotic Days Conference

Our colleagues Dr. Jessica Mitchell and Nichola Jones presented their work at the Antibiotic Days Conference which took place in Upsala on the 24th and 25th of November. Jessica discussed her recent scoping project in Uganda which considers how community engagement can generate data on AMR drivers and impacts in wildlife health. Nichola presented a paper based on her thesis highlighting the importance of taking a gendered lens in community engagement and AMR projects.

 

Nichola Jones presenting at the Antibiotic Days Conference

Nichola Jones presenting at the Antibiotic Days Conference

The conference included delegates from across AMR related disciplines and the CE4AMR team really enjoyed listening to advances in AMR research, discussing challenges in addressing AMR and sharing insights from communities in reducing demand for antimicrobials. This conference will be a firm diary entry for next year!

 

 

Project insight

One of CE4AMR’s collaborative project between HERD International (Nepal) and the University of Leeds (UK) has recently received top-up funding to continue its impact on AMR education. The original project co-developed a suite of educational resources on AMR with teachers and students in Nepal during the pandemic. This included a facilitation pack for teachers, a resource pack of activities and AMR playing cards. Abriti Arjyal, Paul Cooke, Bipul Lamichhane and Jessica Mitchell are now rolling out this package of resources in two new schools to test its feasibility, acceptability, and impact on AMR knowledge of students.

The education pack has also been tested with UK-based Girl Guiding units and had positive reviews from educational leaders in Uganda where future collaborations are being planned. The detailed AMR information within the facilitation pack has helped inform the content of our COSTAR project and contributed to effective stakeholder presentations on the topic of AMR in both Nepal and Uganda.

Activity 2 in action! Girl Guides in Leeds create their own microbes from modelling clay.

Call for action 

As you will know our website features many exciting CE and AMR projects. If you have new work or updates to be added please let us know at CE4AMR@leeds.ac.uk

 Interesting Publications and Outputs 

Events and workshops 

  • UKRI-GCRF One Health Poultry Hub (OHPH), invites you to join our first webinar of the Roadmap Series 2 on Exploring key challenges and opportunities in multi-sectoral collaboration for the governance of AMR in India, organised byJawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and Chatham House, UK.
    • This event will be broadcast via Zoom on 20 December 2022 from 15:00 to 16:30 (IST). Register for the webinar here: https://forms.gle/kJpt7CBuFsTnTEET8
    • The working language of the webinar will be English, but further information or assistance can be provided as needed. Please reach out to series2@gmail.com with your needs.

Funding

Pre-announcement details: AMR diagnostics and surveillance 2023 – JPIAMR

Next time

Our next newsletter will be shared in March 2023 and will include delivery updates from our large COSTAR project to evaluate the Community Dialogue Approach to change behaviour on AMR. If you would like to contribute any materials or project updates to this newsletter do let us know by emailing CE4AMR@Leeds.ac.uk.