Writing with Juliet Iwelunmor

If I was to linger for a little while, about a day, I would choose today, choose this very important day, where teachers taught and we listened and children taught and we listened and it’s as if both were necessary, teachers and children teaching, and listening, and perhaps we can have more trustworthy public within public health when we who teach, listen first to those little among us as they teach us the most tender and blunt things about the public’s health, not for the sake of us, but for sheer delight to be part of the public in this broken world where  public health rarely stops to attend to all the ways, those little change lives when they sing their highest notes. Perhaps these are the times for listening and may we always begin from roots drenched in wisdom and growing!

We spent the day resuming our LIGHT Public Health summer camp with children bright and curious about a field that rarely considers them as experts of their own health and wellbeing. I was moved by Ross’s teaching about public health in a way that truly resonated with the summer camp attendees. Then Thembie took us back to the beginning, took us back to why she even decided to be in this field. If Public Health is to make any impact, my sense is that it should begin with those rarely invited to speak about public health, and not the expert alone.