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Israel Adekunle Balogun

CBM, Abuja, Nigeria

Israel Adekunle Balogun

Israel Adekunle Balogun, MD, MSc Public Health in Developing Countries
Disability Inclusive Development Advisor, CBM Nigeria Country Office
israel.balogun@cbm.org

I am a Medical Doctor and a disability advocate who is passionate about inclusive development especially among persons with disabilities (PWDs). I overcame limiting barriers to graduate as a medical doctor from the University of Jos (MBBS in 2007) and later became the first Chevening Scholar with a disability to come from Nigeria.

I attended the prestigious London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) in 2014/2015 session where I studied Public Health in Developing Countries.

While serving as a volunteer at Challenge Your Disability Initiative (CYDI) a Non-governmental organization that works with PWDs in the Bauchi, Northeast of Nigeria I worked with the leadership of PWDs in Bauchi state to facilitate the passage of a Bill on the implementing the Convention of the Rights of PWDs and was influential in the allocation of 10% slots to PWDs under the National Directorate of Employment training programme in Nigeria.

In addition, together with the leaders of persons with disabilities; I helped develop a proposal that won funding together with the leadership of PWDs in the Northeast region to address the scourge of HIV/AIDS among persons with disabilities. I served as the Project Coordinator of the project covering Bauchi, Gombe and Yobe states under a HIV/AIDS Fund (HAF-3), a World Bank sponsored project with the National Agency for the Control of AIDS in Nigeria (NACA) in 2009/2010 and was able to generate the prevalence rate of HIV/AIDS prevalence as an advocacy tool.

I have presented papers on Making Development Inclusive of persons with disabilities as Non-State Actors in a Regional World Association of Non-Governmental Organization (WANGO) held in Nairobi Kenya in June 2010; and on the Challenges of Implementing HIV/AIDS programme among persons with disabilities in Nigeria in October 2010 at a Voluntary Service Organization Partners meeting in Abuja. I had worked as a medical officer of health (MOH) in an infectious Disease Hospital in Bauchi State, Northeast region of Nigeria where I oversee.

I served guest speaker in a seminar series at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine on gender based violence and education quest of disabled, he gave a key note address at the Launch of the “Gains of Inclusion and Cost of Exclusion” at the European Parliament in Brussels on the 9th December 2014.

I have been a guest lecturer at the University College London where he lectured post-graduate student on the perspectives of persons with disabilities from the Global South in February 2015.

While at the London School of Hygiene, I Co-initiated a Student group at the International Centre for Evidence in Disability (ICED) and also served as a student ambassador at the school.

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