My Story: I grew up in Belarus. When I was 8 years old, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster happened, with 70% of the radioactive fallout going to Belarus; there was a heightened public health appeal in the months following the tragedy. As a public, we became acutely aware of the importance of looking after our health holistically.
At the age of 18, in my first year at university, I started working with the Chernobyl Children’s Project - a charitable foundation based in Ireland. During my summer vacations from university, I brought children from the Chernobyl area on health recuperation programmes to Ireland. This work was both challenging, sad at times but also rewarding. My groups of children came from an orphanage, hence, aside from working as an interpreter at various events, I was also involved in social work with vulnerable children. Seeing children’s health affected by Chernobyl, the efforts that were made to help them have a better quality of life made me determined to get involved in public health initiatives.
My career development took several paths, with a brief stint in journalism. I specialised on the issues of child development and child nutrition. At some point, covering the subject of rising childhood obesity rates in the UK in mid 2010s, I became convinced that prevention of obesity and diabetes type 2 in the young need to start from educating the parents. I saw there was a big information gap in the public health sector and sought a qualification as a Health Coach from the world’s largest nutrition school - Institute for Integrative Health, New York.