Working as an assessor of public health facilities in remote villages of Uttar Pradesh, Shambhavi Singh had never thought her work would give her an opportunity to visit the UK Parliament, let alone address its members.
A public health researcher, the Lucknow girl had started out by conducting free health camps in deprived areas and schools of Lucknow. From there, she went on to villages in neighbouring districts and soon realized that pregnant women and infants were in the need of urgent care in the state.
With that becoming her focus, there was no looking back.
Shambhavi, 35, has led an evaluation of one of the most extensive community-based maternal and newborn health trials conducted in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO) and also presented her work at WHO headquarters in Geneva.
Apart from co-designing solutions for improvement of public health facilities in UP, she is also mentoring a team working in rural and tribal parts of Maharashtra to address address malnutrition.
An alumna of La Martiniere Girls’ College and City Montessori School, Shambhavi first trained to be a dental surgeon at King George’s Medical University. However, founding her calling elsewhere, she went on to pursue a master’s in public health from Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai.
It was while working under the Centre’s Kayakalp scheme for public health that Shambhavi got to know of the British Council’s Future Leaders Connect programme.
Being a platform for ‘young leaders’ to share policy ideas at a global stage, Shambhavi saw this is an opportunity to share her work as well as learn from other like-minded changemakers from across the world.
After a rigourous selection process, Shambhavi was selected among 50 candidates from India, Canada, Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Kenya, Mexico, Morocco, Tunisia, US and UK to visit UK and not only exchange ideas with other leaders working in fields of public policy but also visit prestigious institutions like Møller Institute and University of Cambridge, says director for north India at British Council Tom Birtwistle.
The jewel in the crown, of course, was a discussion at UK Parliament, meeting MPs themselves.
“FLC has has added immense value to my experience. It has helped me map my leadership skills and made me aware of my gaps. I shared with other FLC leaders the challenges that new mothers and infants in UP face on numerous issues. Now, I can reach out to my network to seek guidance, information and opportunities,” says Shambhavi.
She adds, “I interacted with Baroness Alison Suttie, a member of the House of Lords since 2013. We had a discussion on my policy ideas. In a session with Lord Desmond Browne (former member of the cabinet of UK) at the British Council office in London, we discussed leadership skills. His words that stuck with me are ‘spend a lot of time talking and discussing ideas and strategies with people who do not agree with them’. This is a quality every leader must have. Listening to senior leaders who had served at important positions in the UK government was a valuable experience.”
“The British Council has equipped me with the tools and skills to transform my community. The programme made me realise how we face challenges, shape our life journey. It allowed me to learn from global leaders and made me aware of the limitless opportunities. We should always think of ‘what more can I do’ to bring about a positive change,” she further adds.
Shambhavi also recently participated in the LonWHO 2019 (London World Health Organization) where the paper presented by her was adjudged the ‘Best Position Paper’ at EMRO, Eastern Mediterranean Region.
Additionally, some of Shambhavi’s ideas were presented in Research for Nutrition (R4NUT) conference held in Paris in November 2019 and as a continuation of this work, a new proposal has been developed and submitted to a competitive grant, the results of which are due to be declared in the coming weeks.
“With my training and experience, I am working towards finding strategies to improve quality of care in public health facilities, especially for mothers and newborn babies,” says Shambhavi.
Shambhavi has worked under the guidance of Dr Vishwajeet Kumar and Aarti Kumar, co-founders of Community Empowerment Lab (CEL), their team and experts from World Health Organisation. She has worked on two major large-scale studies- BetterBirth trial and Quality+ research, recently concluded at CEL.
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