Day 12 was a busy day of important meetings with decision makers. We started at DfID where we were hosted by senior civil servant Jane Edmondson and a room full of 25 DfID employees. Jane said that it was ‘incredibly important’ to hear these personal stories and that DfID were always keen to hear of new innovative ways of improving the global health!!
Next up was the APPG event. Baroness Barker who is an HIV champion, chaired the event and Sheila Gilmore and Martin Horwood were in attendance. Martin Horwood was particularly interested in the Push, Pull, Pool idea and suggested we have around-table meeting after the election to discuss its viability in more detail.
Day 13 and we were off on our farthest journey South – The University of Exeter. The sun shining down over the country hills on our train down put the tour team in high spirits, and arriving on the Exeter campus – which has the highest student to tree ratio! – did not disappoint! Alice, President of their newly created StopAids society had set up their stall beautifully and it definitely engaged more than a few passers-by as we continued to fill up our ever-growing list of signatures for the Missing Medicines Campaign! Onto the evening event and Juliana and Cristian powerfully shared their stories for the third time in 2 days! Abigail Grace, a member of the local community who attended the event said:
After a memorable vegetarian feast in the fabulous Herbies (check it out if you’re in Exeter!), it was off to sleep ready to catch the train to Oxford the following morning for the penultimate day of the Speaker Tour!