Dr Wendy Snowdon
Dr Wendy Snowdon was appointed as Country Liaison Officer, WHO Office for Kiribati, in February 2021. She is a public health specialist with extensive experience working across the Pacific in health promotion and chronic disease prevention. From 2015 to 2021, Dr Snowdon worked in WHO’s Division of Pacific Technical Support in Fiji, leading the Pacific Noncommunicable Diseases (NCD) and Health through the Lifecourse team. This involved providing technical support in NCD risk factor reduction, NCD management and surveillance, health promotion and related areas.
Before joining the WHO in 2014, from 2009, Dr Snowdon worked at the Fiji National University (FNU) and Australia’s Deakin University as Coordinator for the Pacific Research Centre for the Prevention of Obesity and Noncommunicable disease (C-POND), based at FNU. Prior to this role, she worked at the Secretariat of the Pacific Community (now The Pacific Community) as part of the Lifestyle Health (NCD) team.
Dr Snowdon has a BA Nutrition and Dietetics, an MA Health Promotion & Health Education, an MA International Public Health, and a PhD Food Policy
Children building a sea wall to protect a maneaba against rising sea level in South Tarawa. The heart of any Kiribati community is its maneaba or meeting house. A traditional maneaba has an imposing structure, with slabs of coral supporting a huge roof formed from coconut wood, held together with coconut string and thatched with pandanus leaves. The whole community is involved in its construction, and every aspect of the maneaba has a symbolic as well as a practical function.