Often times, in the course of conversations across different fora and media, the global burden of disease features prominently as an issue deserving/demanding attention and action from world leaders. Attending the NNEdPro Cambridge Summer School in Applied Human Nutrition and International Summit helped put into proper perspective, why the global burden of disease should not only concern me, but more importantly, become an integral part of my organisations advocacy and campaigns.
The summer school paraded an array of astute professionals in the field of human nutrition and medical sciences, each bringing a bouquet of knowledge on various aspects of diet and nutrition, dietary assessment methods and a host of other subject matter.
Attending the summer school served to broaden my horizon and understanding on the need for my organisation to step up its campaign on nutrition in Nigeria. Several learning points from the summer school indicated clearly that unless and until we all pay closer attention to nutrition in population health, the share of each country’s gross domestic product that will be spent on caring for obese and malnourished population will continue to geometrically rise.
The highlight of the entire experience for me attending the event was the learning points from the New Frontiers in Human Nutrition Research. The course dwelt greatly on overviews of Nutrigenetics and Nutrigenomics. Though both fields were new to me, the learning points have broadened my understanding of human nutrition and equipped me with resources that can be used in further research and knowledge sharing.
The summer school and international summit in no small measure, helped to further explain the intersection between agriculture, nutrition and economic development. This undoubtedly, is the key take away for my organisation and for this; I sincerely thank the Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN) for making it possible for my organisation to attend the program.
Since returning from the summer school and international summit, my team and I have been working on new work areas specifically around agriculture and nutrition. We are looking forward to working with more partners on advancing the cause of agriculture and nutrition.
We sincerely appreciate the kind and generous support received from GODAN with which our acceptance into and attendance of the NNEDPRO summer school on applied human nutrition was made possible, we pledge to increase the tempo of our campaign on agriculture and nutrition and look forward to more engagements as this.
Celestine Okeke, Lead Partner; Sustainable Entrepreneurship and Economic Development Initiative.
