12 May 2025: From trial to protocol to prototype to social venture: 10-year journey of the RH Kits
Prof Nibedita Ray-Bennett provided an update of the “Facility and Mobile Reproductive Health Kits for Disasters and Crises” designed to reduce avoidable maternal deaths to the University of Leicester School of Business REF Impact Coordinators, Professor Nik Hammer and Dr Georgios Patsiaouras.
With funding Economic and Social Research Council and Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) SHAPE Catalyst ARC Accelerator Fund, she is developing sustainable business models to bring the Kits to the international market.
More details of this project can be found through this link:
29 April 2025: Professor Peter Jackson Annual Lecture
Dr. Olive Kobusingye delivered the 2025 Professor Peter Jackson Annual Lecture as part of the Avoidable Deaths Network’s International Awareness Day for Avoidable Deaths (#IAD4AD) global campaign. Dr. Kobusingye outlined her professional trajectory from surgery to global injury epidemiology, highlighting the role of mentorship in shaping her career.
The lecture series, launched in Osaka, Japan in 2023, aims to recognise the importance of mentorship and promote its role in advancing work in DisasterRiskReduction, SustainableDevelopment, and the prevention of AvoidableDeaths.
Prof Nibedita Ray-Bennett delivered a keynote speech for the Indian Institute for Public Administration’s “International Conference on Integrating Climate Action, Artificial Intelligence, Sustainable Development Goals and Water Management” (ICASW – 2025). She delivered her speech remotely for the Plenary Session 1 on “Strengthening Climate Resilient Infrastructure & Community Adaptation”. Prof Ray-Bennett introduced her evidence-based intervention, RHCC (Reproductive Health Kits, Capacity Building, Community Awareness), for primary health facilities in disaster-prone areas as an example of strengthening health system resilience to meet the UN’s SDG 3 and Sendai Goals D and PFA 3. Her session was attended by 80 participants.
30 March 2025: IAD4AD Global Campaign Wrap-Up
The second year of the ADN’s Global Campaign, ‘International Awareness Day for Avoidable Deaths’ (IAD4AD), commemorated 50+ activities across 20+ countries throughout March 2025. Some campaigners campaigned over a number of days. As part of this campaign, All India Disaster Mitigation Institute launched the Ahmedabad Case Station for Avoidable Heatwave Deaths (CasA) and the Custodians for African Literature launched a creative art competition called Art4Life across Sub-Saharan Africa. The ADN team introduced a new award called the Hero Award, and the recipient of this award was Mr Tahira Khan, an Emergency Officer in Pakistan, for her innovation in saving lives from a well-fall. We thank the campaigners for their effort, and the post-event report and the anthology for Art4Life will be released soon.
26 March 2025: UNOCHA HNPW 2025
At UNOCHA’s Humanitarian Networks and Partnerships Week (HNPW) 2025, ADN organised five sessions (three virtual and two in-person). These sessions attracted 368 registered participants and featured 23 expert speakers discussing strategies to reduce avoidable disaster deaths. Thank you to all participants for contributing to these crucial discussions!
19 March 2025: Taiwan Celebrates International Awareness Day for Avoidable Deaths
Taiwan marked its first celebration of the International Awareness Day for Avoidable Deaths (IAD4AD), facilitated by Hideyuki Shiroshita, Co-founding President of the Avoidable Deaths Network. The event, held at Chi-Nan University, brought together the Puli community to reflect on past disasters, including the 1999 Chi-Chi earthquake and the 2024 Hualien earthquake. Participants observed a minute of silence to honor those lost in the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake.
The Tzu-Chi Foundation, a local NGO, provided lunch, demonstrating their disaster response capabilities. In the afternoon, attendees visited the Paper Dome, a structure originally built in Kobe after the 1995 earthquake and gifted to Taiwan in 2006 as a symbol of friendship between Japan and Taiwan.
This celebration aims to strengthen ties between the UK, Japan, Taiwan, and global ADN members, fostering a spirit of international cooperation and resilience.
March 13, 2025: ADN President Prof. Nibedita Ray-Bennett Presents Innovative Interventions at Cambridge
Prof. Nibedita Ray-Bennett, President of the Avoidable Deaths Network (ADN), engaged with students at Pembroke College, University of Cambridge, as part of the Global Panel Project on ‘Natural Disaster Relief: Supporting Communities in a Changing World’. Prof. Bennett presented three groundbreaking interventions aimed at strengthening communities and reducing avoidable disaster deaths.
- Facility and Mobile RH Kits for Disasters and Crises: These kits are designed to provide essential reproductive health services during emergencies, ensuring that critical care is accessible even in the most challenging circumstances.
- Global Campaign IAD4AD: This campaign focuses on raising awareness and mobilizing global efforts to prevent avoidable deaths during disasters.
- Case Stations for Avoidable Deaths: These stations serve as hubs for community support and resources, helping to mitigate the impact of disasters and save lives.
Prof. Bennett’s presentation underscored the importance of innovative solutions in disaster relief and highlighted ADN’s commitment to supporting vulnerable communities worldwide.
March 12, 2025: ADN Junior Champion Magazine Vol 3: Voices of Resilience from Malawi’s Youth launched
The Avoidable Deaths Network (ADN) proudly launched the third volume of the ADN Junior Champion Magazine (https://www.avoidable-deaths.net/junior-champion-magazine/ ). This edition, curated by youth editors Prarthona Datta from Canada and Anushka Koner from India, features nine compelling stories from disaster-affected youths and children in Malawi.
The magazine highlights the personal narratives of these young authors, offering a poignant glimpse into their experiences and resilience. Two of the child authors traveled a significant distance to share their stories at their teacher’s house, where they spoke under the glow of torchlight due to the lack of electricity. Their presence was a humbling reminder of the challenges they face and their unwavering spirit.
Special thanks to Dr. Jean Kayira for her invaluable efforts in gathering these stories from Malawi, ensuring that the voices of these young champions are heard and celebrated.
8 March 2025: Empowering Women’s Health: Lifesaving Kits Launched for Crisis-Prone Areas in Asia on International Women’s Day 2025
Just in time to mark International Women’s Day 2025, ADN is pleased to share Leicester’s Press release on: ‘lifesaving kits for women in Asia at risk from post-abortion complications during disasters and crises’ (https://le.ac.uk/news/2025/march/leicester-lifesaving-abortion-kits-women-asia)
The theme of IWD 2025, ‘Accelerate Action,’ calls for urgent steps toward gender equality in leadership and decision-making, health, education, crisis response, and public safety. Health, especially sexual and reproductive health, are neglected areas of public health in everyday life, and more so during natural hazard disasters and humanitarian contexts, putting the lives of women and girls of reproductive age at risk of avoidable death, injury, and disability.
Action cannot be accelerated to reduce health outcomes if women do not have access to services and if health facilities do not have medicine and other essential supplies to administer. ‘Facility and Mobile Kits for Disasters and Crises’, based on the principles of localisation, aims to address these gaps in disaster-prone hard-to-reach areas of LMIC settings.
6 March 2025: Saving Lives, Reducing Disasters: Prof. Nibedita Ray-Bennett Highlights Avoidable Deaths at SCDR Webinar
Professor Nibedita Ray-Bennett delivered a short lecture at the Special Centre for Disaster Research (SCDR), Jawaharlal Nehru University, India. She raised awareness about the ADN’s Global Campaign and shared some results of her ongoing research on why people die in disasters, who dies, and what are avoidable disaster deaths. More than 70 participants attended this webinar. Dr Nikunj Makwana organised this webinar under the guidance of the SCDR chairperson, Professor Kaushal K Sharma.
28 February 2025: International Awareness Day for Avoidable Deaths unites global efforts in disaster risk reduction
On 12 March 2025, join the Avoidable Deaths Network (ADN) and international communities to celebrate International Awareness Day for Avoidable Deaths (IAD4AD).
Throughout March, 30 activities hosted by 31 institutions, will amplify the message “Disaster Deaths Are Avoidable“, with the ultimate goal of saving lives.
Focused on addressing diverse disaster risks, protecting vulnerable populations, and promoting collaborative prevention in a changing climate, the activities will engage with local communities, local and national governments, United Nations and World Health organisations, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and press/ media organisations across 59 countries.
We invite individuals, communities, and organisations to mark this day and raise awareness of avoidable disaster deaths worldwide with the aims of raising the visibility of disaster deaths, especially indirect disaster deaths and missing persons, and capturing their impact on people’s lives and livelihoods.
For details of the IAD4AD 2025 activities, please follow the hashtag #avoidabledeathsday and visit iad4ad.avoidable-deaths.net.
27 February 2025: Avoidable Deaths Network Celebrates 2nd Year of Global Awareness Campaign from 1-31 March 2025
Avoidable Deaths Network marks year 2 of the ‘International Awareness Day/Month for Avoidable Deaths’. We encourage the global campaigners to tag Avoidable Deaths Network and use the hashtag #avoidabledeathsday when celebrating the campaign. We can’t wait to see your amazing photos.
26 February 2025: Prof. Nibedita Ray-Bennett Unveils 10 Groundbreaking EDI Strategies at Research Showcase Day
As part of the School of Business ‘Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) Research Showcase Day’, Prof Nibedita Ray-Bennett presented ‘My EDI Research as Part of the Avoidable Deaths Network (ADN)’. She presented 10 EDI-AND strategies to promote equity, diversity and inclusion in research projects and outputs.
24 February 2025: ADN Winter Bulletin is released
21 February 2025: Prof. Nibedita Ray-Bennett and Journalist Rafiqul Mantu Unite for Global Campaign on Avoidable Deaths
Prof Nibedita Ray-Bennett met with multi-award-winning Bangladeshi journalist Rafiqul Mantu. They explored different areas for collaboration including: i. journalist’s training programme to solicit stories around avoidable deaths for 2026; ii. Hand-written Community Patrika for Avoidable Deaths; iii. Photography from the coasts of Bangladesh to mark the ADN’s Global Campaign March 2025; iv. Taking part in COP 30 in Brazil.
19 February 2025: Announcement of UNOCHA HNPW 2025 from ADN
We are pleased to announce five sessions will be organised using the ADN platform for this upcoming HNPW. For details, please view the press release below.
10 February 2025: Prof. Nibedita Ray-Bennett Advocates for Disaster Death Prevention at High-Level National Workshop
As a distinguished panel speaker, Prof. Nibedita Ray-Bennett delivered five key messages on how to prevent avoidable disaster deaths at the National Consultation Workshop on
“Disaster Management and Resilient Infrastructure in Changing Climate and Environmental Risks”.
She was part of panel on “High Level Session on Policy & Capacities- Research & Strategies”.
This High-Level Session was Chaired by Prof. Anil Gupta, Head of ICARS-IIT and Prof. Vinod K Sharma, Vice Chairman, Sikkim SDMA & Sr. Prof. IIPAs.
The National Consultation Workshop was organised by NDMA, MOEFCC and DST-Govt. of India at ICARS, IIT-Roorkee Greater Noida Campus (NCR) on 10-11 Feb 2025.
25 January 2025: “Promoting Safety and Saving Lives: A Powerful Discussion on Drowning Prevention”
On January 25, 2025, the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and the Royal Lifesaving Society Commonwealth marked the UN’s “International Day of Education” with a compelling “Drowning Prevention Event” at One Great George Street, Westminster in London.
As a panellist at this esteemed event, Prof. Nibedita Ray-Bennett, ADN’s Founding President, shared lessons from ADN’s other injury prevention projects and outreach activities. The other panel members were Dr Caroline Lukaszyk from the World Health Organization, Jonathan Bruce from the Royal Lifesaving Society Commonwealth, and Carlene McAvoy from RTA Scotland. Dr Rebecca Sindall chaired the panel from the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.
24 January 2025: “Groundbreaking Reproductive Health Kits for Disasters and Crises Reach Major Milestone: Ready for Market Testing”
After a decade of dedicated work, the “Prototyping the Facility and Mobile Reproductive Health Kits for Disasters and Crises” project has achieved a significant milestone. Funded by ESRC-IAA and ESRC-Commercialisation, this innovative initiative has successfully developed two low-budget, comprehensive Reproductive Health Kits aimed at addressing incomplete abortion, missed abortion, and post-abortion complications during disasters and crises. These Kits contain essential medicines, equipment, consumables, and educational materials and are now poised for the next critical phase—market testing and further piloting.
On January 24, 2025, Prof Nibedita Ray-Bennett, the principal investigator of this project, presented to Leicester’s ESRC funding panel, garnering positive feedback and recognition. With the current phase concluding next month, the project is set to move into Phase 4 in March 2025 with funding from ESRC-AHRC, where it will continue its journey towards developing a sustainable business module for market readiness. Prof. Ray-Bennett, the project leader, thanked all collaborators, including Mr. Maqbul Bhuiyan, Dr. Elvina Mustary, Professor Syed Hamid, Mr. Kazi Rahman, 15 Technical Advisors (among others). Their expertise and support have been vital in bringing this critical initiative to fruition.
9 January 2025: ADN – Santiago Network Meet For the First Time
The first ADN – Santiago Network meeting was attended by nine technical experts and four future leaders based in the UK, India, Bangladesh, Austria, Germany and Belgium.
The Governance for the ADN – Santiago Network was discussed. The Steering Committee was formed, consisting of technical experts, Nibedita Ray-Bennett, Alex Skinner, Anil Gupta, Stephen Samuel, Vishal Pathak, and future leaders Yunes Abou El Wafa, Eduardo Cardoso, Guilia Cristiana and Arkoneil Ghosh.
The Plan of Action for 2025 was discussed and ideas for impactful supplementary activities were shared.
A WhatsApp group was formed and the ADN – Santiago Network webpage was published.