Merith Basey

Merith Basey

Merith is a connector, a movement-builder and a creative. Her commitment to health equity and justice began through her love of language and Latin American visual culture. She spent several years growing youth-led programs with type 1 diabetes communities across Latin America and the Caribbean. Through this formative grassroots organizing combined with a Master’s at LSHTM she was motivated to co-found the 100 Campaign in 2012, aimed at re-framing the narrative around insulin access as a human rights issue and reducing the barriers to access.

From 2014 to 2022, Merith was responsible for guiding UAEM’s student-driven activism and working to radically shift the way we research and develop medicines to center people not profit, an issue that has been brought more sharply into focus since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2020, she launched the Free the Vaccine for COVID-19 campaign in conjunction with the Center for Artistic Activism and UAEM. She joined Patients For Affordable Drugs in September 2022 to continue the fight to make medicines affordable focused on the challenges of lowering drug prices in the US. She speaks French, Spanish and Portuguese.