PPeCC and NCD Alliance Japan (with administrative support from HGPI) co-hosted the Japan Our Views, Our Voices workshop on December 12th, 2019 to strengthen the advocacy skills of people living with non-communicable diseases (NCDs) and other parties most affected by NCDs.

Our Views, Our Voices is a new style of workshop for strengthening the advocacy skills of people living with NCDs such as cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, chronic respiratory diseases, and mental illnesses using world-standard methods developed by NCD Alliance . Ms. Haruka Ikezaki of PPeCC and Representative Director of Heart Valve Voice Mr. Hitoshi Fukuhara joined the event as peer trainers and facilitators. They had previously participated in NCD Alliance’s June 2019 Train-the-Trainer Workshop in Geneva.

The event had twelve participants from organizations and groups for NCDs that are involved with various diseases. In addition to learning basic information about healthcare and NCDs, participants learned strategies for representing people with NCDs effectively by summarizing and sharing their personal experiences. Practical exercises on using elevator pitches to quickly win over listeners were also conducted.

In the future, NCD Alliance Japan will continuously work to strengthen the advocacy abilities of people living with NCDs and other parties most affected by NCDs.

* NCD Alliance: A collaborative platform bringing together over 2000 civil society organizations and academic institutions in more than 170 countries