Michelle Farrington

Michelle is a specialist in Public Health and Community Engagement with more than 15 years of professional experience in the fields of capacity building, public health, epidemic preparedness and response and community engagement, which includes over 10 years working multiple categories of humanitarian crisis and response, protracted disasters, post emergency planning and long-term development in 19 different countries.

Michelle has Masters Degrees in Humanitarianism and Conflict Response (University of Manchester) and Public Health (LSHTM). She has worked for with several humanitarian NGOs including WaterAid in Madagascar, International Medical Corps in Syria, and Oxfam in multiple humanitarian contexts. Through her work with Oxfam she has delivered a range of action-research projects including: A Partnership Defined Quality project between rural communities and the Ministry of Health in Sierra Leone; A desk study of the impact of socio-cultural perspectives on humanitarian response; And a participatory design project that bought together female Rohingya refugees and female Bangladeshi architects to collaboratively design sanitation facilities in Cox Bazar (the Social Architecture Project).

Most recently she has led the Public Health component of Oxfam’s COVID-19 Task Force, providing advisory on preventative measures for the global confederation of Oxfam affiliates. Currently she is leading a research project for Oxfam in collaboration with HelpAge looking at the incontinence needs of older people in humanitarian emergencies.