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0bituary : Andrew Chetley
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Andrew Chetley was a strategic thinker, a prolific communicator, and an international advocate for public health. He was the former Executive Director of Healthlink Worldwide and former Director of Exchange – a networking and learning programme to identify good practice in health communication. He spent several years working as a writer and editor at the Bernard van Leer Foundation which focuses on early childhood development.
While at War on Want, he campaigned on health and development issues and was instrumental in founding and guiding international networks including the International Baby Food Action Network and Health Action International.
In 1994, he helped WABA to develop a tool on systematic monitoring of the "State of Breastfeeding" country by country – GLOPAR. He subsequently gave the movement a kind of breastfeeding manifesto, an inspiring document called TEN LINKS FOR NURTURING THE FUTURE.
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Reacting to the sad news, Anwar Fazal, Chairman Emeritus of WABA said: "Andy was just amazing. We worked together on very many "thinks and things!" Andy will live on through all the great materials and ideas that he left as a legacy and is unforgettable."
Trained as a journalist in Canada, he had worked in Asia, Africa and Latin America. He was the author of nine major public health publications and countless reports on health, education, and development.
In 1986, the editor of one of his publications on infant feeding described him in the preface as: “an ordinary person whose commitment to the issue gradually turned him into an expert campaigner”. A few years later, Andrew wrote of people in impoverished communities in Colombia: “The people within the communities, when given the opportunity to do so, were the architects of their own development … this, surely, is the key to sustaining development.” He continued to act as a catalyst for change, to stimulate community empowerment and the sharing of knowledge to improve the lives of children and the families and communities where they live.
Andrew Chetley - passionate health activist, brilliant writer and a master strategist - will always be with us through his many books, works and networks
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World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action
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