Dr Cassandra Akinde is an alumna of the University of Lagos and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), where she studied under the British Chevening Scholarship. As a public health researcher and the executive director of The Neo Child Initiative for Africa (TNCI), she recently won the Study UK Alumni Awards under the Social Action category. In this interview by Kingsley Alumona, she speaks about the award, her work, and other issues.
Congratulations on winning the Study UK Award. What does the award mean to you and your career?
I am incredibly honoured to be recognised for my work with The Neo Child Initiative for Africa (TNCI) on such a global scale. I am delighted to receive this honour from the British Council. It is my pleasure to put my learnings from the United Kingdom into practice in Nigeria which wouldn’t have been possible without the support of my incredible team and the guidance of my mentors at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM). Ever since I came back from the UK, I have been the biggest cheerleader for the quality of the education that I received from LSHTM.
Therefore, winning Study UK Award, in the Social Action category, is a great recognition and motivation for me to work harder. I hope this will also inspire the next generation of women to pursue their dreams and to study in the UK.
Tell us about the award. Is the award only for Nigerians who studied at LSHTM and the University of London?
No. The Study in UK Alumni Award is for any outstanding alumnus who studied in any UK university. This award recognises alumni who have made an exceptional contribution and commitment to creating positive social change and improving the lives of others.
What are the requirements, application process, and selection processes of the award like? What stood you out that made you be selected and awarded the award?
The Study UK Alumni Awards are open to alumni living outside of the UK only within the last 15 years (i.e. 2008 – 2023). For one to apply, he or she must have attended a UK university and been awarded a full UK degree-level qualification (or higher) either face-to-face or via distance learning. The application process is simple. It involves answering questions regarding your work, impact, and professional aspirations.
I think what made my application stand out is the fact that I was able to demonstrate and illustrate my long track record of social impact in my community upon my return to Nigeria.
What are the benefits associated with the award?
There are a lot of benefits — but, mainly, it is to be part of a vast UK alumni network, share your experiences of UK education with others, improve career prospects, develop a professional network, receive recognition of your own achievements, capacity building, and professional development, to name just a few.
You graduated from LSHTM in 2021. How did you get into such a prestigious school, and how were you able to afford the cost of the education and living in London?
I was privileged to win the British Chevening Scholarship funded by the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to pursue a master’s in tropical medicine and international health. Studying at LSHTM has always been my dream. I chose this school because it offered me the unique opportunity to be formally trained in epidemiology by world-renowned experts and gain superior foundational skills in quantitative/qualitative research, data analysis, and designing public health interventions in low- and middle-income countries. My LSHTM degree not only prepared me for a move from clinical medicine to epidemiology but also deepened my interest in global health and research in infectious and tropical diseases.
What were your most exciting moments during your studentship at LSHTM?
I had an incredible time at LSHTM. I enjoyed forming vital professional networks and personal relationships with my classmates, schoolmates, alumni and professors. I am glad to have invested myself fully into building my capacity as a global health advocate and acquiring expertise and foundational knowledge to combat health inequities globally. My favourite memories would be attending global health lectures where I got the chance to meet and engage seasoned field experts. The diversity of staff, students and global health lecturers provided a true international experience. It opened me to global public health volunteering experiences with Save The Children UK, the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine, and Hygiene and Polygeia that I would not have had otherwise.
Moreover, LSHTM served as an excellent platform for upskilling my research skills through volunteering with the LSHTM Vaccine Centre, where I was able to apply my grassroots experiences of child health programming and translate them into evidence-based policy discussions with other researchers in high-, middle- and low-income countries.
Since you graduated from LSHTM and returned to Nigeria, what work or project have you been doing for a living?
Upon my return to Nigeria in 2021, I have been working nonstop on developing, implementing, and evaluating community health programmes focused on WASH, nutrition, deworming, and vaccine-preventable diseases like pneumonia, diphtheria, and tetanus. I have also been working as a clinical research coordinator and research clinician on epidemiological prevalence and incidence studies focused on Lassa fever and monkeypox in Nigeria.
Moreover, I continued collaborations with my alma mater by obtaining research grants and publishing at least four scientific papers with professors from LSHTM.
In your recent interview on the LSHTM website, you stated that one of the benefits of being an alumna of the school is winning grants worth $30,000. Could you list some of these grants and the impacts you made with them?
I think I will need to clarify this. I said being an alumna of LSHTM has exposed me to an extensive network of global health experts both locally and across the world with whom I could share ideas, be recommended for professional opportunities, and work on collaborative research projects.
I particularly benefited from grant opportunities and collaborative research projects. For instance, I collaborated with the Chevening Alumni Association of Nigeria to obtain a £5000 grant from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office to conduct its first-ever SDG literacy drive campaign across six states in Nigeria, focusing on SDG 4 Quality Education, SDG 7 Clean Energy, and SDG 13 Climate Action to empower 2000 children in 18 primary schools with the needed tools to become changemakers.
The second grant I won was with Alive and Thrive/FHI 360, a three-year grant to accelerate the scale-up of optimal maternal, infant, and young child nutrition practices in Nigeria by shifting societal norms through behaviour change, peer group support, community participation/engagement, policy advocacy, and strategic use of data in collaboration with the federal and Lagos State ministries of health.
The most recent grant I won is the early-career research grant, courtesy of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene and the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) which funded a research project on assessing the impact and effectiveness of teacher-led WASH intervention on hand-washing practices and prevention of diarrhea, under-nutrition, and pneumonia among schoolchildren in primary schools in Lagos, Nigeria. The purpose of this research is to provide valuable evidence regarding school WASH programming that could contribute to changing policy, update the WASH curriculum in schools and evidence-based information in building a roadmap to reduce the disease burden associated with the prevalent unhealthy sanitation and hygiene practices of children in Nigeria and enhance individual health and community resilience.
Tell us about the Nigerian LSHTM community and your current position there.
Upon my return to Nigeria, I joined my country’s alumni community and was elected to serve as an executive member of the LSHTM Alumni Steering Committee. In this position, I have facilitated 10 workshops on how to write winning personal statements and also how to choose a public health programme and research proposals for both master’s and PhD students. I have personally mentored many students and helped 20 students across Latin America, Asia, and Africa to win scholarships to study in the UK.
You graduated from the University of Lagos (Unilag) for your MBBS degree. Do you have strong ties with the Unilag alumni association the way you do with LSHTM?
No. Unfortunately, I do not have strong ties with the Unilag Alumni Association. I have not had the opportunity to work on any project with the alumni association yet.
Many brilliant Nigerian university graduates want to study at LSHTM but do not have the money to do so. What is your advice to them on how they could be admitted into the school?
As an alumni ambassador and Chevening Scholarship alumna, I have been actively involved in mentoring prospective LSHTM applicants and sharing various application tips with them through webinars, workshops, and seminars. I constantly inspire medical students and early-career public health professionals to pursue a career in public health and volunteer in the development sector to build capacity. I would like to encourage my peers, and junior and senior colleagues to use online resources to find and apply for scholarships to enable them to pursue their dreams. If I can do it, so can you.
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