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Salzburg Global Fellows share their views during Healthy Children, Healthy Weight

A select number of Fellows at Healthy Children, Healthy Weight were asked: "What is your main take-away from this week's program?" We have published their answers below.

"The power of the collective wisdom and thinking from diverse perspectives, and that it doesn’t matter where you are… in the world, the need to narrow things down, to focus, because we went wide… different nationalities or countries perspectives, that same thing happens. You kind of go off track to get back on track… and a commitment to stay in contact and keep moving.”

Michelle Palmer, Australia

Director of Partnerships at the New Zealand Department of Conservation

"For me, it’s just how do we continue to break down silos between education and health? ... How do I continue to work with health practitioners and other individuals? ... How can we have the education practitioners come together to look at a holistic way of supporting children and families? How do we continue to weave in families into our school model that doesn’t keep them so isolated [and] on the outside… in a way that gives them more agency and voice?”

Dominique Lee, USA

Founder and Executive Director of Building Responsible Intelligent Creative Kids

"I think it's really the collective sense of unity amongst policymakers [and] professionals [plus] commonalities we’ve all found in our own work, both in terms of problems but also in solutions [and] communities as well. I think that’s been really surprising... particular highlights, I think there’s been a sense of action and a sense of agency that we don’t necessarily need to call on other people or we shouldn’t be asking for agencies to do things. We should be taking it on within
ourselves...”

Matt Creamer, UK

Senior Policy Officer at the Greater London Authority

“I’ve been taken aback by the ways that power has shown up in the conversation… the ways in which it shapes people’s access to healthy food and to opportunities that would enable them to have an equitable start at life. I’ve just had a renewed appreciation for the role, and the purpose of power in shaping child outcomes and that’s… more on the public health side, but it’s less clinical than often our discourses around health tends to be.”

Sebabatso Manoeli, South Africa

Director of Innovation for the All Children on Track by Grade Four Portfolio at the DG Murray Trust

“I think one of the main takeaways is that across different countries there are a lot of commonalities about the ways in which organizations and leaders are trying to improve the status of children and families. However, you know, context really matters and understanding the complexities of opportunities and challenges is really important... without that knowledge, you most likely will not thrive… [there were] so many diverse people coming from different perspectives but still looking at different strategies in a similar way. There is a lot of values-based leadership here focused on the fundamentals of understanding and valuing the voices of families in their work.”

Marjorie Sims, USA

Managing Director of Ascend at the Aspen Institute

The program Healthy Children, Healthy Weight is part of Salzburg Global's multi-year series Health and Health Care Innovation. This year’s program is being held in partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.