Blessina Kumar, Global Coalition of TB Activists

Blessina Kumar is a health activist and a public health professional with over 30 years of experience working with diverse communities across India and the Sudan. In the Sudan she established a large network of community health promoters and worked with women and girls ensuring access to health care and the abolishment of harmful traditional practices such as female genital mutilation.  

She has also worked extensively with tuberculosis (TB)-affected communities in South-East Asia, addressing the barriers to women’s and children’s access to TB care. 

Her endeavour is to reach the unreached, build capacity, empower people at the community level and advocate for policy change at the macro level. Her competencies include policy advocacy at the global level and community building and strengthening at the local level for exploring sustainable solutions to problems leading to response and ownership. Her strengths are project and programme development, strategic needs-based planning and motivational and leadership training.  

Blessina has developed gender policies for many organizations and was instrumental in pushing the global TB community to look at TB with a gender lens. She continues to serve on many committees globally, contributing richly, raising the voices of the unheard and pushing for a seat at decision-making tables. Blessina has an honours degree in nursing and midwifery and a postgraduate diploma in health systems management and advanced studies in TB research.