A March mum who has spent almost a decade raising awareness on the life-changing harm of surgical mesh has been named a winner of the 2024 Tenacious Campaigner Awards. Each of these individuals will receive a grant of £20,000 to further advance their campaigns.
Kath Sansom runs Sling The Mesh, which began in 2015 with 20 members on her Facebook support group, and now has almost 11,000 from around the world.
The award is a sought after recognition, celebrating exceptional individuals who have shown extraordinary skill and determination in their fight against injustice and for driving meaningful societal change.
Thank you so much to the Tenacious Awards @BrktrhImpact for hearing our voice. Your support will help us continue advocating for vital change across the health sector to improve #patientsafety pic.twitter.com/8HrNf635sg
— Sling the Mesh (@MeshCampaign) September 4, 2024
Kath said: “Receiving the Tenacious Campaigner Award is an incredible honour. This recognition not only highlights the importance of our fight but also fuels my determination to push for lasting change in the arena of patient safety.
“I don’t want my children and grandchildren to suffer as we all have. We must not have another mesh scandal where innocent people are harmed from healthcare treatments then face a brick wall of denial.”
This year’s awardees have demonstrated remarkable resilience and effectiveness in their respective campaigns, each making a significant impact in their fields. They are
- Anna Severwright – for placing people with lived experience at the heart of social care reform through Social Care Futures.
- Georgia Elliot Smith – for challenging legal loopholes that allow harmful pollution, through her campaign Fighting Dirty.
- Harry Scoffin – for his work with Free Leaseholders, aimed at abolishing residential leasehold tenure in England and Wales.
- Janey Starling – for leading Level Up’s ground breaking campaign to end the imprisonment of pregnant women.
- Kath Sansom – for advocating for patients harmed by surgical mesh and lobbying for improved patient safety with Sling the Mesh.
- Not1More – for fighting to end the use of Protest Injunctions that intimidate and silence campaigners.
- Matt Staniek – for protecting Lake Windermere from ecological degradation and ensuring it is safeguarded from sewage pollution.
- Munya Radzi – for the efforts of Regularise to secure basic rights and a safer, equitable path to settlement and citizenship for the UK’s undocumented population.
- Smartphone Free Childhood – for building a community of over 120,000 parents fighting back against Big Tech’s exploitation of childhood.
- Will Prochaska – for his work in tackling the harm caused by gambling through advocating for stricter regulations on the industry’s most harmful practices.
The winners will attend a prize giving event in London on 25 September, with an opportunity to meet the awardees and network with other professionals across the fields of campaigning, law, journalism, and philanthropy.
https://twitter.com/BrktrhImpact/status/1830980388799541503
For more information about the awardees and their campaigns, please visit: Tenacious Awards
