Get Global - Global Health Talks Irish Global Health Network

In this episode, we welcome SDG Advocate and community development practitioner, Niamh Flynn and Niamh Hennessy, an engineer, and practicing mediation and Asana teacher. They speak to us about one of their recent action projects, 'SDG Meditate,' a meditation podcast series which gives you the chance to not only take time to re-energise but to allow you to consider each of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) both as an individual and as part of the collective global community. The aim of the podcast is to bring the goals into your life in a gentle way which is also beneficial for your health and happiness!

Through this podcast, they hope to inspire and empower others to help make the SDGs happen through a societal change in our own mindset towards the challenges facing our interconnected world today. This podcast is an opportunity to consider your role in this world in relation to the wider world.

Best way to listen:
Set up a queue on Spotify starting with: 1) Opening meditation 2) The SDG that you want to listen to eg. SDG 4: Quality Education Collective 3) The Closing Meditation.
You can access the series here: tinyurl.com/2w6crrzz

Don't have access to Spotify? You can access the series via the website: https://www.balanceinchaos.me/sdg-meditate  

These meditations are intended to be used in a personal capacity and/or in a community development education context for the purpose of bringing awareness to the Sustainable Development Goals. If you would like to learn more about the SDGs go to: sdgs.un.org/goals

In this episode, pharmacist and motivational speaker Jack Kavanagh speaks to us about diversability. He shares how he responded to being cast off his path at just 20 years of age after a serious injury and what motivates him to inspire others. He talks about a proactive approach to health and “healing in the absence of cure”, applying his own version of ‘magic’ to motivate others.

In this episode we speak to Colin Roche, the programme coordinator for Climate Justice and Energy at Friends of the Earth Europe. Colin has worked for over 20 years in global justice campaigning, previously working for Oxfam in Ireland and internationally and with other campaign groups on trade, finance, corporate justice, climate and other issues. He discusses the early influences that inspired him to become a climate justice activist. From school Concern debates, to currently working on the EU Green Deal. He emphasizes how climate change affects all aspects of our lives, across the whole globe, with heavier impacts in the global South. He also shares his experience of working to stop oil pollution in Nigeria.

Diarmuid O’Donovan is Professor of Global Health at Queen’s University Belfast and honorary consultant in public health at the Public Health Agency in Northern Ireland. In this podcast, he carries us through his journey from a 24-hour fast for Concern in secondary school, to studying medicine, to working in Zambia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. His work has included clinical, research, education and policy aspects of HIV, maternal and child health, and research capacity building. He talks about equality, equity and justice and what the growing language surrounding the decolonisation of global health means and how it will be achieved.

In this episode, we speak to Nicola Brennan, Ireland’s Ambassador to Ethiopia, South Sudan and Djibouti, currently based in Ethiopia. She shares candidly her journey from her first development position in Indonesia to her current role as Ireland’s Ambassador.  She talks about the policy priorities of the Irish government, how gender equality is firmly embedded in her team at the Embassy, what it is like to be a woman leader and her hopes for the future.

Majo Rivas is a Paraguayan-Irish activist who has worked in sexual and reproductive rights, migrant rights and disability rights. In this episode she shares a very personal perspective on the issue of vaccine inequity and barriers to access to medicines. With almost all of her immediate family in Paraguay, the COVID-19 vaccine inequity is particularly close to home. She describes the situation in Paraguay in terms of the health system, and how it was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. She also explains what the TRIPS waiver is and how it can facilitate equitable access to vaccines worldwide. Majo urges the public to sign the petition and pressure local TDs to support the TRIPS waiver. Learn more about the waiver and the campaign fighting for vaccine equity here: https://peoplesvaccine.ie/