Pierre Cooke Jr. receives Emerging Leader in Health Award at ICO 2024

The Emerging Leader in Health Award celebrates the groundbreaking contributions of youth leaders in addressing overweight and obesity.

Introduced at the International Congress on Obesity (ICO) in 2022, this award recognises outstanding advocacy efforts and innovative solutions proposed by young individuals to address these pressing public health challenges.

This year, at the International Congress on Obesity 2024 in São Paulo, Brazil, the Emerging Leader in Health Award was presented to Pierre Cooke Jr., a passionate advocate for health equity in low- and middle-income countries. His efforts, particularly in the Caribbean, have focused on empowering vulnerable communities and ensuring that young voices are central to the conversation on obesity prevention.

We are honoured to share Pierre's powerful speech, in which he reflects on the significance of this award, his journey in advocacy, and his vision for a just and inclusive approach to addressing obesity worldwide.

There isn’t much I can say, except I think this award is a recognition of the vulnerability of low- and middle-income countries.

When I started my advocacy journey and I started to join the fight and the conversation it was because we had an issue – 1 in 3 children in the Caribbean are overweight or obese and this was a significant issue.

I had a conversation with a particular organisation in the civil society space and what they could to curve that tide and this conversation about creating a solution for children particularly in schools was happening was with a group of adults. I asked a question – have you asked any young persons about this; did you speak to the students about the interventions you want to place in their schools.

The analogy I used was if you are sitting in your house, and someone says I am going to help you, I am going to renovate the house, I am going to take the windows, the door, the front steps off and you’re sitting in that house not knowing they were going to do this, they never asked you what the issues were and what you wanted yet these things are still changing around you, that is frightening.

So my fight and my journey in advocacy and my talks about obesity are to ensure that never again are you in a house and people are making changes and you are not part of the conversation or solution. Thank you to the team at WOF, I think they believe in me more sometimes than I believe in myself, but I am really thankful that there are people who are committed to ensuring that small vulnerable voices in small countries are engaged at the highest level. I am really happy that everyone here is committed to fighting to protect children and to ensure there is a just world, and all persons are protected and rights are fulfilled.

I look forward to working in this space, and lending my voice to this fight, but I can’t do it alone. I am happy that I see I am not alone, there is an entire community and I ask we stay committed and stay the course.

We need strategic and moral leadership from those who are willing to make hard decisions and to care and lead, and I am willing to lead.