Jazz ensemble or classical orchestra

Metaphors of global health: jazz improvisation ensemble or classical orchestra?

Reda Sadki Culture, Global health, Thinking aloud

In the realm of classical music, the orchestra stands as a formidable emblem of aesthetic grandeur and refinement. However, beneath the veneer of sophistication lies a deeply entrenched system that stymies the potential for creative exploration and spontaneity. As in a straitjacket, the rigidity of this system threatens to reduce the rich tapestry of human experience into a sterile hierarchy, devoid of the serendipity that breathes life into artistic expression. The classical orchestra is governed by a hierarchy that places the conductor at the apex, wielding an almost tyrannical authority over the musicians. It is a system that perpetuates a culture of conformity, where musicians are coerced into subsuming their individuality in the service of an imposed order. This stifling environment leaves little room for the musicians to contribute their own interpretations or creative impulses, and instead demands that they adhere strictly to the conductor’s vision, which is often based …

Overcoming barriers to vaccine acceptance in the community: Key learning from the experiences of 734 frontline health workers

What works in practice to build vaccine confidence?

Reda Sadki Global health

This is the content of a poster presented today by The Geneva Learning Foundation (LinkedIn | YouTube | Podcast | Twitter)  at the International Social and Behavior Change Communication Summit 2022 (#SBCCSummit) held 5-9 December 2022 in Marrakech, Morocco. What is the Geneva Learning Foundation? Get the full report… Read the preface by Heidi Larson… From responding to the initial shock of the pandemic to preparing COVID-19 vaccine introduction Over 6,000 health professionals joined the COVID-19 Peer Hub in July 2022, part of the Geneva Learning Foundation’s (TGLF) global immunization learning-to-action platform. We asked a simple question: Can you think of a time when you helped an individual or group overcome their initial reluctance, hesitancy, or fear about vaccination? Who participated? Local practitioners from 86 countries: Health system levels: So what? What was the significance of the experience for participants? Transformation: “I can tell you this experience changed my life. It has changed my practice and made …

Heidi Larson: “So much remains determined by the capacity of people on the frontlines to explain, advocate, and respond in ways that are almost entirely dictated by context”

Reda Sadki Global health

This is the preface by Heidi Larson for the report “Overcoming barriers to vaccine acceptance in the community: Key learning from the experiences of 734 frontline health workers”. This report is presented today by The Geneva Learning Foundation (LinkedIn | YouTube | Podcast | Twitter) at the International Social and Behavior Change Communication Summit 2022 (#SBCCSummit) held 5-9 December 2022 in Marrakech, Morocco. What is the Geneva Learning Foundation? Get the full report… Read the preface by Heidi Larson… My own consciousness of the fragile equilibrium sustaining vaccine confidence came from working with immunization programmes and local health workers to defuse rumors that threatened to derail vaccination initiatives. Twenty years ago, this meant traveling to countries to meet, build relationships with, and work side-by-side with frontliners. Since that time, the corpus of research on the topic has grown tremendously. Elaborate behavioral science frameworks, supported by robust monitoring and evaluation, are now available to guide policy makers, donors, …

Learning for knowledge creation WHO Scholar programme

Learning for Knowledge Creation: The WHO Scholar Program

Reda Sadki Global health, Learning strategy, Scholar Approach

Excerpted from: Victoria J. Marsick, Rachel Fichter, Karen E. Watkins, 2022. From Work-based Learning to Learning-based Work: Exploring the Changing Relationship between Learning and Work, in: The SAGE Handbook of Learning and Work. SAGE Publications. Reda Sadki of The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF), working with Jhilmil Bahl from the World Health Organization (WHO) and funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, developed an extraordinary approach to blending work and learning. The program started as a series of digitally offered courses for immunization personnel working in various countries, connecting in-country central planners, frontline workers, and global actors. The program was designed to address five common problems in training (Sadki, 2018): the inability to scale up to reach large audiences; the difficulty in transferring what is learned; the inability to accommodate different learners’ starting places; the need to teach learners to solve complex problems; and the inability to develop sufficient expertise …

The Geneva Learning Foundation Dialogue for Learning & Leadership

Listen to the Eighth Dialogue for Learning and Leadership

Reda Sadki Leadership, Writing

Discover the leadership journeys of two remarkable learning leaders Every episode is different, drawing on the life experiences of Key Contributors and of listeners. As a listener, you can become a Contributor by sharing your own learning and leadership challenge – and what you are doing about it. Share your challenge… Listen to the Dialogue on Google Podcasts… Learn more… Listen to the Dialogue on YouTube… In the Eighth Dialogue, Karen E. Watkins and I were joined for the first time by Key Contributors Iris Isip-Tan and digital higher education strategist Keith Hampson. In Part 1 of the Dialogue – before deep-diving into the Metaverse – we explored: How Iris Isip-Tan, Director of the Interactive Learning Center at the University of the Philippines in Manila, helped her colleagues pivot to emergency digital learning during lockdown – and to what extent this has led to more lasting change. How has this shaped her leadership journey? In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Peter Tippett built a platform to help yoga …

Listen to the seventh TGLF Dialogue on learning, leadership, and impact

Reda Sadki Leadership, Writing

Every episode is different, drawing on the life experiences of Key Contributors and of listeners who become contributors by sharing their own learning and leadership challenges – and what they are doing about them. For this Seventh Dialogue for Learning & Leadership, recorded on 26 September 2021, we have around our table for the first time three new Key Contributors. Victoria J. Marsick, PhD, is a professor of Adult and Organizational Learning in the Department of Organization & Leadership, Teachers College, Columbia University. Prior to joining Teachers College, she was a training director at the United Nations Children’s Fund. Dorothy Marcic went, she says, “from Footnotes to Footlights”. She quit academia and a regular paycheck to become a full-time playwright. She wrote two hit musicals, RESPECT, which has played 2800 performances in 72 cities and SISTAS, currently playing Off-Broadway in New York City for over six years. Nabanita De‘s full-time occupation is …

Listen to the sixth TGLF Dialogue on learning, leadership, and impact

Reda Sadki Leadership, Writing

In this sixth Dialogue for learning, leadership, and impact on 29 August 2021, Reda Sadki and Karen E. Watkins explore: Is there a meaningful difference between change and transformation? Key Contributor Aliki Nicolaides believes that there is. She has just completed editing the new Palgrave Handbook of Learning for Transformation, a collection of more than 1,100 pages of research, thinking, and practice, exploring a more complex and deeper inquiry into the “Why of transformation.” We talk to Australian communications guru Mike Hanley about how he learned to survive, adapt, and lead an organization’s communications in a world where, he says, “everything changes, in real time, as the digital media environment shifts with technology, trends and events.” Tari Dawson is a doctor and teacher of medicine in Nigeria. She shares her leadership journey, revisiting a time during the HIV pandemic when she had to make difficult decisions to reshape an organization – and discovered that change is “a process, not a procedure.” …

Listen to the fifth TGLF Dialogue on learning, leadership, and impact

Reda Sadki Leadership, Writing

Welcome to this fifth episode of the Geneva Learning Foundation’s Dialogue for Learning, Leadership, and Impact, recorded on 25 July 2021. First of all, with my Co-Convenor Karen E. Watkins, I want to thank the Contributors who have brought this Dialogue to life. There are many venues where leadership and learning are discussed. I do not know of another one quite like this one, focused on practitioners from everywhere working on everything, fusing theory and research with practice, and dedicated to exploration with no rigid institutional or disciplinary boundaries. Bill Wiggenhorn, the legendary founder of Motorola University, is with us tonight for the first time. The other Key Contributors for this episode are: Katiuscia Fara, Bill Gardner, and Esther Wojcicki. Charlotte Mbuh, Emmanuel Musa, and Min Zha shared their leadership journeys. Other Contributors included: Esther Dheve Djissa, Joseph Ngugi, Joyce Muriithi, Morufu Olalekan Raimi, Muhammad Umar Sadkwa, and Ritha Willilo. …

Listen to the fourth TGLF Dialogue on learning, leadership, and impact

Reda Sadki Leadership, Writing

On 27 June 2021, Convenors of the Geneva Learning Foundation’s Dialogue for learning, leadership and impact, Karen Watkins and Reda Sadki, were joined by four Key Contributors: Laura Bierema, Bill Gardner, Bryan Hopkins, and Aliki Nicolaides. Contributors include: Aleida Auld, Charlotte Mbuh, Cleopas Chiyangwa, Emmanuel Musa, Frema Osei-Tutu, Iliyasu Adamu, Joseph Ngugi, Kuldeep Baishya, Lara Idris, Nadene Canning, Ndaeyo Iwot, Rhoda Samson, Sachithra Dilani, Samuel Sha’aibu, Sfundo Gratitude Sithole, Simon Adjei, Sohini Sanyal, Sonia, Stephen Downes, and Tari Lawson. Here are seven of the themes that we explored together. Leadership for digital learning: can we make online breakout groups similar to in-person small groups – or is that the wrong question? How do we learn within ambiguity and uncertainty – and why is this so important now and particularly in a humanitarian context? How important is it that your own personal values are aligned with those of your organization? Is there any evidence for …

Leaders among us

Listening for leadership

Reda Sadki Leadership

On 30 May 2021, Convenors Karen Watkins and Reda Sadki were joined by eight Key Contributors: Nancy Dixon, Bryan Hopkins, Barbara Moser-Mercer, Renee Rogers, Catherine Russ, Esther Wojcicki, Laura Bierema, and Emanuele Capobianco. This was the third Dialogue convened by The Geneva Learning Foundation for learning, leadership, and impact. Each Key Contributor has a fascinating, singular leadership journey. This trajectory may have a collective dimension, of movements, of belonging, or of affiliation that have and continue to shape it. Even when this is so, it is also profoundly personal and individual. It is also a process of accretion – although we tend to recall quantum leaps in significant learning. For some, there may be discomfort with calling oneself a ‘leader’, given the conflation between leadership and authority, leadership and management, leadership and perceived value in society. Then, there is the moment of coming to consciousness, about the significance of leadership. …