Where are the voices of young people on AMR

CE4AMR are proud to have recently co-signed an open letter to the WHO regarding the involvement of children in AMR initiatives. Coordinated by ReAct group the open letter calls for the WHO to create ring-fenced funding to establish ‘A United Digital (online) Platform to Support Engagement of Young People on One Health and Antimicrobial Resistance’. The WHO will soon be arranging its 148th Executive Board meeting and CE4AMR, ReAct and other signatories believe now is the time to initiate, fund and sustain opportunities for young people to meaningfully engage with the issue of AMR. Read the full letter here: Open Letter to WHO EB_Young People

Children in India get involved in Superheroes Against Superbugs initiatives to understand AMR

Young people are already powerful advocates on other One Health issues including climate change, climate justice and climate-change associated inequalities however their voices are not yet being heard on AMR. Promisingly, 2020 hosted the first young person’s summit on AMR through an online forum due to COVID-19 restrictions. This was incredibly successful and engaged young people from across the global to share their understanding and challenges around AMR. However, there is no united Global platform to continue these conversations and develop young people’s agency on AMR. The open letter makes specific, strategic, and time-bound suggestions for funding and activities which could develop young people’s ability to engage with AMR.

CE4AMR were thrilled to see this letter receive so much support. Our team have recently secured funding to co-develop and trial an AMR education programme in Nepal through GCRF follow-on funding from an existing AMR intervention. Although this project is currently paused due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are planning to re-start the work within 2021 and have a project brief detailing our aims which can be accessed here:  Schoolsprojectbrief.

An example of a comic strip designed to engage Kenyan children with AMR.

CE4AMR champion the use of community-based methods to tackle AMR across the One Health sphere. Whilst several of our featured projects have directly worked with children, for example Superheroes Against Superbugs and AMR comic books, we recognize that CE4AMR funding so far has done little to specifically engage with this audience. Children and young people are part of local, national, and global communities and have the potential to be hugely influential in terms of creating changes on AMR behaviour, policy and practice. We hope this letter can spearhead more collaborative action on engaging young people with AMR, whilst also developing collaborations between researchers and practitioners already active in this area.