Jan Geissler, Founder and CEO of Patvocates, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“Heading home after four intensive and inspiring days at the 6th WECAN Academy in Gdańsk (well, more or less, as LOT decided to treat me to an unexpected bonus night at an airport hotel). I am feeling incredibly proud of the cancer community we have built together over the past 11 years.
Back in 2015, a small group of us founded the Workgroup of European Cancer Patient Advocacy Networks (WECAN) with the ambition of strengthening patient advocacy across Europe. We wanted to create a truly bottom-up movement where no one speaks on behalf of the community like other umbrellas, but where member organisations themselves set priorities, take joint action, and collaborate to shape the future of cancer advocacy.
In 2019, we held our first WECAN Academy by bringing together Sarcoma Patient Advocacy Global Network (SPAGN)’s SmartStart and European School of Oncology’s Masterclass into one programme. This week, passionate patient advocates from all across Europe came together once again to share experiences, challenge each other, and develop new skills. Seeing this community flourish reminds me exactly why we started all this.
The WECAN Academy has become much more than a training programme, but a community where current and future leaders work side by side, building the knowledge, confidence, and networks needed to push for change in research, healthcare, policy, and society.
What makes me particularly proud is that most of our faculty are experienced patient advocates themselves, training on topics such as access to care, stakeholder engagement, NGO governance, communication, HTA/JCA, evidence-based advocacy, patient preferences, data business models, drug development and patient-centric trial design. Over the years, we have trained almost 500 patient advocates through our in-person WECAN Academies. These are the future leaders who will continue to strengthen patient advocacy across Europe while we dinosaurs sneak out through the back door.
A huge thank you to our faculty, the Academy Steering Committee, our organising team, especially Anastasia Mityagina and Ana Hernández Blázquez, the WECAN Board (which I have just re-joined), and above all the participants whose enthusiasm, openness, curiosity, and commitment made these 4 days so special.
Every WECAN Academy leaves me optimistic about the future of patient advocacy in Europe despite the crossfire of geopolitics, shrinking budgets, ‘compliancomania’, and rivalries that too often distract from what really matters.
Thanks to everyone who has contributed to WECAN over the past 11 years. Together, we have built much more than a network, but a movement deeply rooted in trust, mission, humanity, activism, friendship, collaboration and shared determination to improve the lives of cancer patients. I can’t wait to see where the next 11 years will take us. But for now, I hope a/on LOT to get home first.”
Other articles featuring Jan Geissler on OncoDaily.
