📣Please note:  Due to the announcement of the General Election, we have taken the difficult decision to change the Wen Forum to a shorter online event. This will mean that it is a free event now running from 6.30pm until 8pm BST.📣

Join our guest speakers this Green Baby Day to explore what race and gender has to do with toxic chemicals, how we can achieve a toxic free future, how to minimise the risk and what can be done to safeguard future health.

Why are breast and uterine cancer rates higher in black women who use hair relaxers? Why are Black women four times more likely to die in childbirth and face higher rates of stillbirth and miscarriage? Why do children from marginalized communities have worse health outcomes? Why do some workers have higher rates of miscarriage than others? How can we ensure that children’s right to a healthy environment in which to thrive, is realised? Where is the reproductive justice? And why aren't these questions being addressed in public health policies? 

We will be discussing these and other questions in our online webinar.

Our speaker panel includes:

• Ms Karen Joash - Consultant in Obstetrics and Gynaecology and Scientific Advisor to Global Black Maternal Health, and Tommy's Charity

• Baroness Natalie Bennett, Green Party peer

• Seyi Falodun-Liburd, Co-director, Level Up

• Suzanne Astic, Policy and Advocacy Adviser on Children’s Rights and Chemicals, CRIN (Child Rights International Network)

• Naomi Delap, Director of Birth Companions

• Chair - Helen Lynn, Green Baby Campaign Co-Manager and Health Advisor, Wen

Speaker bios:

Suzanne Astic, Policy and Advocacy Adviser on Children’s Rights and Chemicals, Child Rights International Network (CRIN)

Suzanne Astic is a passionate advocate for a toxic-free environment. She specialises in EU public affairs and chemical legislation. As a Policy and Advocacy Adviser at the Child Rights International Network (CRIN), she supports CRIN’s campaign on better upholding children's rights against exposure to hazardous chemicals. Prior to joining CRIN, she worked in NGOs at the United Nations level, as well as for the private sector in an EU public affairs consultancy in Brussels. She holds a Master’s degree in European and International Environmental Law.

Seyi Falodun-Liburd - Co-director Level Up

Seyi Falodun-Liburd is a campaigner and organiser who centres the experiences of Black women and girls. Seyi is a founding member of Project Tallawah, an emerging Black feminist community resource for women and gender-expansive people. She is also Co-director of Level Up, a feminist campaigning community working towards a world where people of all genders are loved and liberated from bodily and systemic violence.

Baroness Natalie Bennett, Green Party peer

Natalie Bennett has been a Green Party member of the House of Lords since 2019. Leader of the Party from 2012-2016, she's focused on getting human life within planetary boundaries, with a particular focus on "novel entities", for short pesticides, plastics and pharmaceuticals. A feminist since age five, she worked as a volunteer with the National Commission of Women's Affairs in Thailand back in the 1990s, when she also worked on women's issues for the World Health Organisation. Her book Change Everything: How We Can Rethink, Repair and Rebuild Society came out in March.

Ms Karen Joash, Consultant in Obstetrics and Gynaecology & Scientifics, Scientific Adviser to Global Black Maternal Health & Tommy’s Charity

Ms Karen Joash, a Consultant in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, Queen Charlotte's and Chelsea Hospital site, holds multiple roles shaping maternal and reproductive health globally. As the Scientific Advisor to Global Maternal Health and Tommy's Charity, she spearheads initiatives to improve awareness of environmental effects on health, particularly during pregnancy and infancy. Additionally, she serves as the Head of Postgraduate Training for Obstetrics and Gynaecology & Community Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare in London; overseeing 26 hospitals. She wrote the foreword for the landmark report Black Child Clean Air Report which highlighted the extent of outdoor and indoor air pollution which affects us all regardless of background or race. She serves on various boards at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and Royal College of Psychiatrists.

Naomi Delap, Director of Birth Companions

Birth Companions is an award-winning charity dedicated to supporting pregnant women, mothers and babies who experience severe disadvantage. Our vision is that every woman has the support she needs to reach her potential for health and wellbeing, and to give her baby the best possible start in life. We aim to improve women’s lives, protect their rights, and drive improvements in the care they and their babies receive.

Birth Companions was set up in 1996 years ago to provide birth support to women in Holloway, Europe’s largest prison. Now the charity runs frontline services in prisons and the community across the country and works to shape the local and national policy and practice that impacts on the lives of mothers and babies.

Kindly supported by:  Weleda,  The Green Parent, The Savitri Trust and Natracare