Blessina Kumar

Blessina Kumar is a health activist with a background in Community Health and Health Systems Management and is the co founder of the Global Coalition of TB Activists (GCTA). She has extensive experience working with varied marginalized communities in India and the internally displaced populations in Sudan. Blessina has experience working with TB communities in Cambodia, Indonesia, and India and provides technical support to countries in Southeast Asia. She has endeavored to bridge the patient – practitioner divide through patient literacy at community level and policy advocacy at macro level. Blessina’s last decade has been focused on TB, passionately advocating for the inclusion of the affected community in TB policy and implementation globally. In India, she led the civil society movement against TB, lobbied decision-makers, and over the past few years, worked with parliamentarians to raise TB awareness for better care, support, and accountability. She is the co-founder of ‘Touched by TB’ the National Coalition in India, of people affected by TB. Presently, Blessina is the CEO of Global Coalition of TB Activists, the first global network of people affected by TB which serves at the forefront of advocacy and capacity building.