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	vanessaford
	Vanessa Ford


Title and Organization:		University of Oxford
Country of Residence:		United Kingdom
Citizenships:		Canada Swaziland
Languages:		English , French , Spanish



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About Me

"Vanessa, you are so goddamn passionate," is what my first year physics professor streaked after listening to my qualms with String Theory, my voice cracking and softened from overuse. And so that was my name for the next four years of university..."Miss Passion"! :) I am known to have a certain joie de vivre; I am an ambitious, open-minded young lady who loves to meet new people and travel. My life experiences have made me a well-balanced and culture-seeking: I have been blessed with the opportunity to do everything from studying in Singapore to sitting at a round-table discussion with Bill Gates and Bill Clinton as a youth advisor for HIV/AIDS, from modeling to working at the World Health Organization in Geneva, from eating cockroaches in Thailand to not eating for days in protest of ending world hunger. And yet I have so much more to discover, so many more people to meet, so much more of life to live....and I want to share this with you.

Miss Vanessa Ford is a founding member, GYCA's 2008 NFP for Jamaica and 2009 Development Coordinator. A graduate from the University of Toronto and the National University of Singapore, Vanessa has been a youth advocate for HIV/AIDS and sexual reproductive health rights for over six years. She has worked with several humanitarian organizations, notably SNAP (Swaziland’s National HIV/AIDS Program), Dignitas International, ICA Canada, Rotary International, AMODEFA (Mozambique), WHO and UNAIDS. She was the Toronto steering committee head for AIDS Ride 2008 (www.aidsride2008.org), has presented several papers on a local and international level, and has participated in the 2010 World Health Assembly. She has also co-produced a documentary profiling indigenous communities in Kenya, view trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20v6jp8St2I.

She is currently attending the University of Oxford, with additional courses from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

She is recognized as one of the only young persons to be invited by President Obama to the White House to commemorate the 2010 National HIV/AIDS Strategy Plan and to honor people's contribution to the HIV/AIDS community.

Primary Interests: International Health, Tropical Medicine, HIV/AIDS, Maternal & Child Health, Socio-cultural Anthropology, Film

Please have a look at the United Nations General Assembly Special Session Youth Shadow Report Vanessa co-wrote with Daniel Townsend:
http://tigurl.org/n83jfo

Countries Visited

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