Paula Valentine is based in Johannesburg, South Africa (2017 onwards) and works for Save the Children UK. She has been an outstanding colleague this year. Paula is as passionate as we are about children’s participation in health. We met when she was about to begin a sexual health programme for young people in London where she used a participatory approach to great effect.

Paula has consistently navigated a complex and ever-changing dynamic between our two organisations. For example, facilitating a three-way relationship between StC Field Programmes, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Children for Health. Despite making great strides we were unable to land the research programme we dreamed of but important and strong connections were made.

Paula laid the foundations for the successful technical work that we delivered to StC programmes in Nigeria and India and the success of this down in no small part due to her.

• Contributed to making Children for Health a stronger, better and an (even) happier organisation!
• Gone out of their way to critique and deepen our growth in a positive and helpful way; and
• Been pro-active in expanding our network in ways that have had a measurable impact.