Fleming Initiative wraps up AMR education convening series

On June 12th, the Fleming Initiative hosted the third set of meetings convening global experts and key stakeholders to discuss AMR education in school-aged children.

We were delighted to have around 60 participants who contributed to the discussion across two sessions, representing a fantastic range of organisations and expertise from across the world.

Chaired by Dr Kate Grailey, the Fleming Initiative were delighted to welcome Dr Folasade Ojo-Benys (‘Microbe Warrior’), Dr Afreenish Amir (‘Antibiotic Champions of Pakistan’), Dr Rita Ochili (‘The E-bug Programme’), Catherine Akello (‘WASH Champions’), and Silvina Alessio (‘Alforja Educativa project’) to present their work on delivering AMR education initiatives for school children in Ghana, Pakistan, UK, Uganda, and Latin America.

The meetings also heard insights from Professor Charbel El-Hani (Federal University of Bahia, Brazil) on “Science education in a troubled world, some notes for navigating our times”.

Over the course of this convening series, the Fleming Initiative has worked together with experts and stakeholders as a group to:

• gain global consensus on what children and adolescents should be empowered to know about antimicrobial resistance

• provide a set of principles for which AMR educational initiatives should aspire to incorporate and adhere to

• be inspired and learn from other AMR educational initiatives and experts in education

• create a long lasting global community of practice for those working in AMR education

• support the production of a living systematic review of global AMR educational initiatives

The open discussions yesterday focused on the final review of the Fleming Initiative’s Global Consensus Document on AMR Education, and we are grateful to everyone who participated for their engagement. The comments and suggestions were a clear demonstration of the value in convening diverse global expertise, which the Fleming Initiative is committed to.

We hope that by achieving global consensus on best practices and approaches for integrating antimicrobial resistance into education will provide a pathway to scale for educational initiatives worldwide.

We are delighted that this initial convening process will be the beginning of an AMR education community of practice, with ongoing sharing of expertise and development of resources in the future.