{"id":46134,"date":"2021-07-05T15:05:25","date_gmt":"2021-07-05T13:05:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/haei.org\/?p=46134"},"modified":"2021-07-05T15:20:15","modified_gmt":"2021-07-05T13:20:15","slug":"2020-haei-virtual-regional-workshop-central-eastern-europe-benelux","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/haei.org\/2020-haei-virtual-regional-workshop-central-eastern-europe-benelux\/","title":{"rendered":"2020 HAEi virtual regional workshop Central Eastern Europe & Benelux"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Michal Rutkowski, Regional Patient Advocate for Central Eastern Europe, Benelux and Middle East<\/i><\/p>\n

It has become a tradition that each year October brings the largest annual gathering for the HAEi community in Central Eastern Europe and Benelux. Part of the tradition is that Poland hosts a yearly regional advocacy event dedicated to patients, caregivers and physicians constantly working in awareness, diagnosis, access and reimbursement to make HAE patients\u2019 lives better and easier. These regional workshops have always been great opportunities to meet and greet the newcomers to the HAEi world and share experiences with other members of the global HAE family. Here unbreakable bonds have been forged, which continue to this day.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, HAEi was unfortunately forced to cancel the 2020 workshop in the form in which it had been held previously. However, the promise HAEi gave to the patients, and the importance of regional advocacy efforts made the global organization decide to organize a virtual edition of this event.<\/p>\n

The virtual world gives us more opportunities, especially to reach those patients who have not been able to participate in such meetings or those who have encountered a language barrier. There is indeed absolutely no substitute for a face-to-face meeting, but at least with today\u2019s technology, we are able to continue our hard work. And as we all know, hard work pays off.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore, we rolled up our sleeves and got down to keep the promise and deliver a virtual workshop. We started our activities in September 2020, and it turned out quite quickly that when it comes to organizing a virtual event is much more complicated than a traditional one. For many weeks several people from the HAEi team met regularly to discuss the work progress and jointly solve the obstacles encountered. The prepared program turned out to be extremely ambitious as well as very demanding in preparation. The assumptions made at the beginning of reaching as many patients as possible required the preparation of presentations and videos in 11 languages: English, Armenian, Czech, Dutch, French, Georgian, Hungarian, Lithuanian, Polish, Russian, and Slovak. Only in this way could we ensure that the prepared content would reach and be understood by all patients, caregivers and physicians, including those who only speak their native language.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The 2020 keynote speakers for the regional workshop were:\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n