Chesmal Siriwardhana Memorial Lecture 2020
Since 2017, the Centre for Global Mental Health (CGMH) has hosted an annual lecture in memory of our colleague Dr Chesmal Siriwardhana, who died tragically in an accident in London. Chesmal was a talented young researcher, whose focus of work was in mental health and humanitarian settings. The lectures follow this theme each year.

Global, regional and national response to COVID-19: protecting and promoting mental health
In this annual lecture, Dr Fahmy Hanna, who is leading the World Health Organization's (WHO) mental health and psychosocial support response to the COVID-19 pandemic, will give a keynote lecture on the global response. We will then have presentations from Dr Mohammed Abdulaziz from the Africa CDC, Addis Ababa and Giselle Dass from the University of Colombo and COMGAP-S, Sri Lanka, on the response in their regions, followed by a panel discussion exploring the factors that have facilitated and hindered the promotion of mental health.
Speakers
- Dr Fahmy Hanna - WHO Department of Mental Health and Substance Use, Geneva
- Dr Mohammed Abdulaziz - Africa CDC, Addis Ababa
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Dr Mohammed Abdulaziz is the Head of Disease Control and Prevention of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He is a foundation fellow of the Africa CDC/African Union fellowship for leadership in public health in Africa and a Fellow of the West African College of Physicians (psychiatry). Before joining Africa CDC, He was a Chief Consultant Psychiatrist in Nigeria and worked in integrating mental health into primary healthcare and Psychosocial support for IDPs in Kaduna, Nigeria.
- Giselle Dass - University of Colombo and COMGAP-S, Sri Lanka
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Giselle Dass is a psychologist, and a visiting lecturer at the University of Colombo. She is also a director of THEME Institute in Sri Lanka which was a passion of Dr Siriwardhana and established together a year before his demise. She also worked with him in the COMGAP-S programme which aims at integrating mental health into primary health care clinics in northern Sri Lanka.
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