Teach to Reach: How a global community united to meet, network, and learn in the COVID-19 epidemic

Teach to Reach: How a global community came together to meet, network, and learn in the COVID-19 epidemic In this presentation, Reda Sadki, founder and executive director of The Geneva Learning Foundation (TGLF), marks the fifth anniversary of Teach to Reach by tracing its origins, explaining how it works, and situating it within a broader learning system that is transforming professional development in global health and humanitarian response. # About Teach to Reach Teach to Reach is a bilingual (English and French) peer learning platform, network, and community for people who work for health. Launched in January 2021 out of a 2020 program to improve immunization training, it emerged in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, when more than 900 health and humanitarian workers came together as the Global Leadership Council for Learning and Leadership to prepare for COVID-19 vaccine introduction. From 7,500 participants at the first conference, Teach to Reach has grown to 24,610 participants at Teach to Reach 11 in December 2024, with cumulative reach across more than 70 countries. # What you will learn in this video - The origin story of Teach to Reach and the surprise discovery of more than 14,000 peer-to-peer networking meetings in three days that led to the creation of Teach to Reach Connect. - Who participates: frontline health and humanitarian workers, half in government and half in civil society, most working at district and facility levels, many in remote rural areas, with the urban poor, with nomadic and migrant populations, with refugees and internally displaced people, and in active armed conflict zones. - How Teach to Reach works before, during, and after the live event, from Teach to Reach Questions and special events to plenaries, one-to-one networking, partner-led workshops, the Knowledge to Action Hub, certification of contribution, and the curated Shared Experiences compendium. - The REACH Network (Relate, Engage, Act, Connect, Help), launched at Teach to Reach 10, which now connects more than 4,000 locally led organizations. - The Impact Accelerator, TGLF’s project and problem-based learning model, which has been shown to move participants seven times faster toward implementation, at about 90 percent lower cost than traditional technical assistance, with 82 percent of health workers in Côte d’Ivoire continuing to use the methodology independently. - How Teach to Reach has expanded beyond immunization to climate change and health, malaria, neglected tropical diseases, One Health, gender equity, gender-based violence, emergencies, aging, non-communicable diseases, decolonization of global health, and the privatization of healthcare. - New courses launching in 2026, including Turning the Tide on malaria (17 May) and Mitigating Gender-Based Violence in Practice (4 May). # Key themes Peer learning at scale, collective intelligence, leadership for learning, climate change and health, immunization, malaria, gender equity, humanitarian response, learning culture, connectivism, Praxis Learning Theory, and human connection in the age of AI. # Why it matters Unlike traditional conferences dominated by global experts, about 80 percent of Teach to Reach participants work at district and facility levels, bringing ground-level insights into global dialogue. The model is built on the conviction that, in a world of knowledge abundance and increasingly capable AI, what remains uniquely valuable in education is human connection, the ability to build networks of practice that help professionals learn, adapt, and lead change together. # About the speaker Reda Sadki is founder and executive director of The Geneva Learning Foundation. He designs learning systems that connect tens of thousands of health and humanitarian workers around urgent shared challenges, and has developed three complementary pedagogical patterns: Teach to Reach, the 16-day peer learning exercise, and the Impact Accelerator, unified under Praxis Learning Theory. # Chapters - Introduction: human connection in the age of AI - Teach to Reach 11 and the umbrella of topics - Origins in the COVID-19 pandemic - The surprise that created Teach to Reach Connect - Who participates - Before, during, and after Teach to Reach - The REACH Network - Climate change and health - From event to insights to curriculum - The Impact Accelerator - Five years on: looking ahead - A growing curriculum, rooted in community - Why this approach, in a world of knowledge abundance #TeachToReach #GlobalHealth #PeerLearning #GenevaLearningFoundation #HealthWorkers #ClimateAndHealth #Immunization #Malaria #HumanitarianResponse #LearningDesign #PraxisLearningTheory #Leadership