Meet The Team

People's Medicines

Meet the team

PVA is an alliance powered by its members. With a membership of over 100 organisations and hundreds of influential individuals, our work is driven by the collaboration, dedication and time given to the project by alliance members’ staff. In addition to these members and the alliance’s co-chairs, we also have a team who are employed to work directly for the alliance. You can learn more about them and their work below, and contact us on [email protected] where we can help direct your request.

You can also skip to learn more about: PVA’s structure, PVA’s administrative team, and the donors who make our work possible.

Our Co-Chairs

 

Winnie Byanyima

PVA Co-Chair

In addition to being PVA Co-Chair, Winnie is Executive Director of UNAIDS and an Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations. She is a passionate and longstanding champion of social justice and gender equality, and believes that health care is a human right.

Max Lawson

PVA Co-Chair

In addition to his role as PVA Co-Chair, Max is Head of Oxfam International’s Inequality Policy. He has previously held leadership positions at Oxfam Great Britain, and has helped author some of Oxfam’s most high-profile papers.

The Team

 

Reach out to me about: PVA alliance updates, website management, graphic design, social media assistance, and digital comms. Refer me to good tunes and those inequality podcasts.

What I’m listening to: Midnight train by Sauti Sol, Feminists for a People’s Vaccine podcast, and The Matt Walker Podcast.

Simon Maina

Junior Campaign Officer

Simon joined PVA as an intern and quickly became the team’s MVP. His keen intelligence and diligent attitude saw him swiftly master the organisation’s website, graphic design tools, and press outreach tools. He leads on the alliance’s regular updates and generally scares everyone with how quickly he picks up every task assigned to him.

Image of Mohga Kamal-Yanni

Reach out to me about: Policy & technical health issues: innovation &access to medical technologies; financing & delivery of health care, health systems, PHC, pandemics, epidemics, outbreaks, NCDs; and multilateral, UN agencies, foundations, CS & govts.

What I’m listening to: Podcasts like Inside Science, New England Medical Journal and The Lancet, and Egyptian singer Fayza Ahmad and Mozart magic flute

Mohga Kamal-Yanni

Senior Global Health Policy Advisor

Mohga has 40 years of experience in health and medicine policy, advocacy and programming in developing countries, with international and national health and development agencies including UN & multilateral agencies, NGOs and governments. She holds a medical degree and MPhil in healthcare and was awarded an MBE in 2009.

Reach out to me about: EU (health) policy, pharmaceutical R&D, access inequalities and pricing of medicines, diversified manufacturing and new frameworks for pandemic preparedness and response.

What I’m listening to: Kendrick Lamar and audiobooks.

Piotr Kolczyński

EU Policy & Advocacy Advisor

Piotr specialises in EU pharmaceutical law and policy. He leads the Alliance’s engagement in EU’s policies affecting global health and access to medicines, represents the alliance in various policy forums and translating complex policy concepts to other team members.

Reach out to me about: Partnerships with PVA Africa stakeholders, writing from the African public health perspective and fun activities to do in Nairobi

What I’m listening to: Cuando me enamoro (Andrea Bocelli), House (Far Caspian), Mina Nawe (Soa Matrix), No Crime (Nonso Amadi)

Martie Mtange

People's Vaccine Alliance Africa Coordinator

Martie coordinates the PVA Africa initiatives such as stakeholder engagement, leading the secretariat of the PVA Africa Steering Group, Civil Society Organisation engagements, advocacy, communication and resource mobilization activities, strategic planning and ensuring everything happens on schedule.

Luz Marina Umbasia Bernal

Reach out to me about: health issues like access to medicines, intellectual property and social security, health policies, R&D, public law, human rights, and how to improve networking PVA LAC

What I’m listening to: music from all places, salsa, rock, chill, indie, and Brazilian like the Killers, Shakira, La 33, Fonseca, and Paralamas. Podcast: history, health, like Inside Science, Diana Uribe, De todo un mucho

Luz Marina Umbasia Bernal

Regional Leader for Latin America and the Caribbean

Luz Marina manages the PVA chapter in LAC, with the support of the promoting group, builds the regional agenda related to the promotion of the right to health, promoting access to medicines and health technologies, intellectual property, transparency, and effective use of public funds as well as adequate preparation to respond to future pandemics, from a regional perspective. Luz Marina is a microbiologist, and lawyer with a Master’s in Foreign affairs and International business.

Reach out to me about: Any work related to PVA Asia (e.g., Campaigns, Collaboration, Designs, Regional newsletters), volunteering opportunities such as planting seagrass for dugong in the south of Thailand, or any other things you want to know about Thailand. Feel free to reach out!

What I’m listening to: I enjoy live music with an acoustic guitar, but currently, my two favorite songs are "Sunflower" and "Mourning" by Post Malone. Aside from music, I value advice and suggestions from people to guide and improve myself better.

Chalita Auesiritrakul

Regional Campaign Coordinator for Asia

Chalita updates the steering committee about social media engagements and broadens PVA’s voice through online platforms. She leads on online presence, enhancing the organization’s visibility and outreach on various social media channels. She also develops organizational materials and tools for events.

As part of the alliance’s commitment to tackling the Northern bias that exists in global health, upon receipt of its grants to fund work from 2021-2023, the People’s Vaccine Alliance Steering Committee agreed to allocate funding and staff with a direct focus on Global South regions that have traditionally been underfunded and underrepresented. The Regional Leads and their teams particularly focus on setting strategic direction for, and supporting, collaborating with and providing funds for their region. Each of the regions have their own network of organisations (some also part of the global network) and work independently driven by their own regional agendas rooted in the PVA global manifesto. You can follow them on Twitter at @PVA_Asia, @Vacunas_LAC and @PVA_Africa.

Fiscal Management and Legal Administration

The People’s Vaccine Alliance is additionally supported by Global Justice Now, the alliance member that currently serves as the fiscal and legal host for the alliance. The PVA would like to acknowledge and thank Global Justice Now’s support.

Structure of the alliance

The People’s Vaccine Alliance is led by a Steering Committee which is made up of the Alliance Co-chairs Winnie and Max, the Regional Leads and the Co-Chairs of the Alliance’s working groups. The Committee is responsible for approving the Alliance’s priorities, memberships and sign off structures among other responsibilities.

The working groups are a set of groups open to all alliance members. These cover key areas of the alliance such as Policy and Advocacy, and Campaigns and Media. The groups meet regularly, and are where the majority of the ongoing work and collaborations of the alliance takes place. Groups are led by two Co-chairs, one from the Global North and one from the Global South. There is also a fortnightly all-alliance call, open to all members, to collaborate and update across the whole alliance.

The groups sometimes form smaller sub-groups which focus on a particular area. These are narrower in focus, usually do not require a chair, and are often time bound, and disband after achieving their goal.

Funding for the alliance

The People’s Vaccine Alliance is grateful for the members that generously provided staff time and secured funding during its first year and to donors who make its growth and work still possible. The Alliance has received $3.7M from the following donors: Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Archewell Foundation, Open Society Foundations and Wellspring Philanthropic Fund.

A portion of these funds enable the work of the global alliance, another portion is managed directly by the regional teams and a further portion is dedicated to the PVA’s Agility Fund.

The Agility Fund is designed to provide rapid, small-to-medium sized grants of up to $15,000 to support work that helps to ensure equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines, tests and treatments. You can learn more about the Agility Fund here. To date, the PVA has run two rounds of the Agility Fund, in May 2022 and September 2022. It has successfully awarded over 30 grants to local organisations, enabling these to advocate and campaign for vaccine equity on local and national levels.