AGM 2024 & Panel Discussion – Building solidarity movements and demanding health justice amid poly-crisis

The AGM is our yearly opportunity to come together and explore the overall running of Medact and to bring together members old and new from the UK and beyond. In addition to essential governance matters, we’re excited this year to be hosting a panel discisson:

The panel discussion will be followed by our AGM, where you’ll hear about successes and reflections from the last year of work across the Medact movement, an update on our organisational finances, and have a chance to vote in Trustee elections.

Everyone is welcome to join the meeting, but you must be a member to vote. If you would like to get involved in running Medact, why not join as a member today?

Submitting motions

The deadline for motion submissions has passed.

Election of Trustees 

The deadline for Trustee applications has passed.

Logistics

We are hosting this year’s AGM online via Zoom. Register to let us know you are coming below, and provide any access requirements you may have. We will share the agenda as soon as it is finalised.

Speaker bios

Chairs:

Anuj Kapilashrami is an interdisciplinary social scientist, academic activist, and Professor in Global Health Policy and Equity in the School of Health & Social Care, and chair of Medact’s Board. Her current work focuses on advancing an intersectional approach to examining health inequalities and structural determinants of health and well-being. She has long been involved in People’s Health Movement (PHM) in India and the UK, formerly as Chair of PHM Scotland where she led the first public hearing on social determination of mental health and the development of people’s health manifesto for Scotland. 

Kamran Abbasi is a doctor, journalist, editor and broadcaster. Following five years in hospital medicine, working in various medical specialties such as psychiatry and cardiology, he moved into senior editorial roles at the British Medical Journal from 1997 to 2005. He returned to The BMJ in his role as executive editor for content, leading the journal’s strategic growth internationally, digitally, and in print. Kamran was made Editor in chief of the BMJ in December 2021.

Panelists:

Guppi Bola is a senior economic strategist, previous Interim-Director of Medact and formerly Chair of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants. In 2020 she explored themes of planetary dysregulation, illness and oppression, and their intersections with the economy for Common Wealth using her 15 years of experience in climate and public health organising. More recently, she has spent the past five years establishing Decolonising Economics, alongside her partner in crime Noni Makuyana.

Rhiannon Mihranian is doctor, organiser, and researcher focused on health justice as a tool for radical systems change. Her work focuses on environmental justice, anti-colonialism, and re-imagining health systems.

Martin Drewry is CEO of Health Poverty Action (HPA) – an international NGO part of the People’s Health Movement, and ally of Medact. HPA works in 15 countries, with 400 staff mostly from the marginalised communities they serve. A background in Peace Studies, Martin played key roles in several large coalition campaigns.

Dr. Inga Blum is a neurologist from Hamburg, Germany currently specializing in family medicine. She joined IPPNW as a medical student with an interest in global health and justice and got involved in ICAN at its founding at the IPPNW World Congress in Helsinki in 2006. In her view the abolition of nuclear weapons is not only an urgent necessity because of the acute danger nuclear weapons pose for global survival but likewise a great chance to shift international security policies from being based on the threat of mutual annihilation to a human security system based on cooperation. Having witnessed the constant failure of disarmament conferences as a member of IPPNW Delegations she initiated a study on attitudes towards nuclear weapons among political decision-makers at the University of Hamburg. She has conducted numerous workshops and delivered speeches with a special focus on motivating the next generation to get active for nuclear disarmament and is active in promoting the Ban Treaty in Germany. She served on the board of the German section of IPPNW from 2013 to 2021 and has started the annual IPPNW Summer Camp to protest against the stationing of NATO nuclear weapons in Büchel, Rhineland-Palatinate.