The Bill & Melinda Gates Institute for Population and Reproductive Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health announced the 2019 winners of 120 Under 40: The New Generation of Family Planning Leaders. 120 Under 40 recognizes and highlights the achievements of the next generation of family planning leaders worldwide; it is led by the Gates Institute with support from Bayer. Over the course of this multi-year project, 120 young family planning champions will be chosen, 40 in each of the three project years. This year’s 40 winners are advocates, researchers, service providers, epidemiologists, medical doctors, program officers, communications/media professionals, and founders of NGOs and nonprofits. They work all over the world—in clinics and universities, in offices, and in the field—to advance family planning and reproductive health.
SM Shaikat, Executive Director of SERAC-Bangladesh is chosen among 40 other global young leaders for this year. SERAC-Bangladesh is a youth organization advocating and implementing programs on family planning, and health rights for youth, and gender-based violence prevention in Bangladesh. Shaikat has worked with Women Deliver as a Young Leader, founding Chair of the Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition youth caucus, and a Global Organizing Committee member of the PMNCH Partners Forum, and initiated the Bangladesh’s National Youth Conference on Family Planning in 2016, and continued in 2017, 2018, and 2019, which was the first of its kind in the world.
“This final group of winners is as remarkable as the first,” says Jose “Oying” Rimon II, Director of the Gates Institute and chair of the 120 Under 40 Jury. “These young leaders are creating lasting positive change worldwide, and their impact will only multiply as they forge new relationships and collaborations with their fellow 120 Under 40 winners.”
Year 4 of 120 Under 40 officially concludes on World Contraception Day, September 26, an annual day of observance to focus international attention on contraception, especially young people’s need to access contraceptive and reproductive health information, services and supplies.
