Humphrey Fellowship Meet Up in Nairobi - December 2018

<The following text was compiled by Farheen Naveed and edited before posting>

Humphrey Fellows Meet up was organized on December 12th,2018  during ISSUP Conference in Nairobi. The meeting was chaired by Steve Gust, Director NIDA and attended by 12 Humphrey Fellows from VCU. The discussion of the meeting is noted below:

1. The introduction of fellows that highlighted the everyone’s current engagement and contribution related to their work in their respective country.
2. Participants shared that Humphrey fellows have rich experience and expertise in the field of substance use and their successes and work need exposure at international fora. INL and NIDA can play a significant role in bringing their experience, connecting them, and having them as trainers and presenters in UN, INL, ISSUP and Colombo Plan-organized events.
3. The NIDA International forum can travel Humphrey fellows to contribute to their conference by sharing abstract presentations, speaking in panels or delivering keynotes that highlight their work, experience and scientific achievements. Steve Gust encouraged and asked fellows to share their abstracts for conference presentations.
4. Participants shared that UTC/UPC trainings organized by the Colombo Plan need to be consistent in some regions like Egypt and Ghana to achieve better results.
5. Participants recommended for INL to connect the Humphrey team from VCU to ISSUP Global and invite presenters from VCU Humphrey faculty to the ISSUP Global conference. The senior experts like Dr. Dace, Dr. Randy and Dr. Bob could bring a great deal of experience and expertise to the ISSUP forum.
6. Participants mutually agreed to establish a WhatsAap of all Humphrey fellows from VCU so experiences and opportunities can be shared with everyone. The responsibility to coordinate was given to by Farheen Naveed