Voices for PEN-Plus

Voices for PEN-Plus, an initiative of the NCDI Poverty Network, brings together people with lived experience to advocate for implementation of PEN-Plus in rural sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

All of the program’s advocates are from a country actively involved in initiating or implementing PEN-Plus, an innovative and integrated care-delivery model. Although they do not receive their care at a PEN-Plus clinic, each advocate lives with a severe, chronic noncommunicable condition, such as type 1 diabetes, sickle cell disease, childhood heart disease, or childhood cancer.

Although the advocates live in disparate countries, they have faced common challenges, including difficulty accessing medicine, stigmatization, and a lack of education about their condition among their community members.

“You all represent a voice, a story, and a hope for a better tomorrow,” Dr. Apoorva Gomber, the Network’s associate advocacy director, told the advocates during the official launch of the program in September 2023. “There’s no better way to advocate for health systems that meet our needs than as an organized coalition. When you learn from others living with noncommunicable conditions, you become an advocate not only for your disease but also for theirs. PEN-Plus serves multiple disease communities, and we support each other too.”