Education is a human right, a public good and a public responsibility
Today marks the second ever ‘International Day of Education’. The UNESCO led initiative is a celebration of the importance of education, its power to transform lives and communities, and its central role to the well-being of people and the planet.
Through coordinated events around the globe, people are encouraged to reflect on the key role that education plays in building sustainable and resilient societies – strengthening the potential for economic growth, promoting peace, reducing inequality and developing the professional skills needed for decent work and sustainable development.
A world leader in paediatric HIV education
A central theme of this year’s International Day of Education is looking at how learning can really empower people. Education is also key to our mission here at Penta. Since 2005, we have been pioneering innovative online and residential training courses for healthcare professionals in Europe and around the world, with a focus on low-middle income countries.
Our training platform ‘PentaTr@ining’ (formerly ‘Tr@inforPedHIV’) is an interactive course which continues to develop and evolve in response to the changing needs of children and young people living with HIV. We have devised patient–centred care educational content as part of our teaching model. Input from patient and advocacy groups, including the direct involvement of young people with HIV, is a vital element in shaping, designing and delivering the training courses, and this has increased successively with each course to date. Hearing the voices of young people with HIV themselves is an important part of the learning for delegates – it’s inspiring, motivating, provides a great platform, a sense of empowerment and is a truly unique experience for young people.
We are also acutely aware of the need to provide lasting benefit to HIV care in the regions we train beyond the duration of the teaching itself. We actively seek to involve local faculty members and encourage an open, informal teaching and learning environment, thus promoting capacity building and fostering meaningful and lasting collaborations. Indeed, feedback from previous training courses has shown lasting change in practice long after the training, highlighting the importance of the clinical support network Penta training delivers. Moreover, centres that have participated in training courses are now involved in ongoing research collaborations with Penta.
To date we have successfully carried out over 60 courses worldwide, with several others planned for the future. We have trained more than 4,000 healthcare workers and researchers from over 30 countries. Moving forward we aim expand our training programmes into other clinical areas of our research activity – continuing to widen our network more and more, and where it matters most.
2020 and beyond…
This year we are delighted to be relaunching our new and improved European edition of the training course: PentaTr@ining 2020: ‘HIV & other Congenital Infections’. We have carefully listened to participant feedback and have significantly tailored the course to the address the key issues that currently face paediatric infectious disease students and healthcare workers. The upgraded design of the online course promises to be more interactive and clinical case based, and this will be complemented by an exciting 3-day residential course in Rome, Italy. Enrollments for the course will be opening soon – so watch this space!
To find out more about Penta Training activities please contact us at: trainforped@pentafoundation.org
