Travel date: October 7, 2020
Name of Meeting/Event/Activity: 11th EAPC Research Congress - Online
Origin: Kigali, Rwanda / Destination: Vilvoorde, Belgium
It was very informative and educative. Presenters has much time to respond questions
Palliative care is less/ not funded in my country, the skills I got from this congress helped me advocate for Palliative care to be included in the National Strategic plan for the Prevention and Control of Non -communicable Diseases: 2020- 2025. Secondly there had never been research on Palliative care services in Rwanda and I will continue to advocate for it
My comment is that the program is fantastic but there should be a session for all IAHPC scholars to know each other so that at the end of the day they meet and share experiences and challenges met during the conference and how to support each other if there is someone presenting. In short a debrief of the day
As I said above that PC in my country is not funded and most of the work is done on voluntary basis, so a topic on Volunteering in PC and Hospices touched me so much and out that that there were more questions than answers: What opportunities are there to be more creative for PC volunteering today?, What issues facing PC volunteering today, Is there opportunities to engage more widely in community led approaches to HPC such as compassionate communities? The above questions will inform my engagement with our volunteers. Another issue which came out clearly for me was how to improve policy engagement. Nothing can be achieved without political will and blessings. We need also to engage the media for PC advocacy