HoG's Regional Coordinator Leads WFH Workshop in Southeast Asia

In January 2019, I spoke at a meeting held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia sponsored by the World Federation of Hemophilia (WFH). Boarding the flight to Malaysia, I could feel excitement and uncertainty coursing through me like electricity. While I typically find public speaking enjoyable, I was anxious because this was my first international conference speaking to a multi-national audience of non-English speakers from vastly different cultures.

The overall focus of the meeting was to help member countries understand the importance of “Measuring and Improving Quality of Care for People with Bleeding Disorders.”  I had been asked to give a four-hour presentation on “Evidenced-Based Advocacy.” The audience for my presentation included physicians and other stakeholders from over seven different Southeast Asian countries, including Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore, and Myanmar (Burma).

Having four hours to introduce, discuss, and review advocacy, I chose to have the participants interact with each other to reinforce key concepts around evidenced-basic advocacy. Participants were asked to sit with other individuals from their respective countries. At the end of each topic segment, time was provided for the participants to work together to create a plan for taking the idea from conception to execution. By the time the meeting had concluded, each country had developed a detailed outline of an advocacy project that could be taken home and used as a starting point to design a comprehensive advocacy program.