Samantha Mukonjia
Samantha is a 5th year medical student at the University of Nairobi and a 2020 PHCA. She is passionate about human health in the context of Planetary Health, and has experience working in community engagement and intervention planning. In 2018, she participated in an intensive demosite fieldwork training that allowed her to develop skills in community participatory needs assessment, planning and implementation. She states that “nature has spoken and what is clear is that one cannot live a healthy life on a sick planet... the Amboseli ecosystem, being a biosphere, is an epitome of how nature is connected as humans openly interact with domestic and wild animals in their environment.” She is also passionate about frugal innovations that offer solutions to Planetary Health problems. In 2018, she participated as a finalist to be an East African Young Water Fellow, developing a solution that sought to curb the high prevalence of open defection among the nomadic Maa community in Kenya. The goals behind the proposed solution included improvement of environmental health promotion and reduction of the incidence of vector borne and zoonotic diseases. She adamantly believes that there is a growing need to examine human health from a different lens- Planetary Health.