Making the
invisible visible.
Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah CBE, BreatheLife Ambassador and founder of the Ella Roberta Foundation, discusses the pressing air pollution pandemic, the importance of clear, evidence-based information, and the power of admitting when we don’t have all the answers.
POSSIBILITIES
In 2013, Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah’s daughter Ella passed away from a rare and severe form of asthma, aged just nine years old. She was the first person in the world to have air pollution listed as her cause of death on her death certificate. This was seen as a landmark event for the issue of excessive air pollution, with the coroner’s issued recommendations making for powerful, evidence-based proof to take forward in the fight to improve air quality for all.
In the years since the tragic loss of her young daughter, Rosamund has dedicated herself to improving air quality and raising awareness of the significant effects of dirty air. The foundation she subsequently set up – the Ella Roberta Foundation – aims to better the lives of children affected by asthma by campaigning for better treatment of asthma, and the fundamental right to breathe clean air, for everyone, across all sections of society.
Rosamund visits schools and community groups; builds relationships with politicians and policymakers to promote understanding of asthma, clean air and its impact; and advises health professionals involved in the commissioning or provision of care and services for young people, representing the views of parents of children with asthma.
We caught up with Rosamund to get her take on air pollution in 2023, and the campaign progress, 10 years after her activism journey began.
What is needed is a public health campaign to explain to people the link between air pollution and good health.
HL: Thank you for chatting with us. Can you tell us a bit about what you’re now working on? We hear you’ve been involved in the expansion of ULEZ (Transport for London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone). Rosamund: I am working on a petition for Ella’s Law to give us a human right to clean air. Ella’s Law went through the House of Lords last year and is currently in the House of Commons. We’ve got 10,000 signatures for a government response and our aim is to get 100,000 together to require a debate, then hopefully it will become law. For ULEZ, I’ve been doing media and putting out information supporting the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan; using it as an opportunity to raise awareness about the importance of air pollution on health. HL: What have you found encouraging this year in terms of the air quality issue? Rosamund: There are more monitors, which is really positive. You can never have enough data. Awareness is slowly rising, especially about the impact on health, but there is more to do. ULEZ going through has been a major triumph and we await the data to see how well it has done. HL: Have you seen any shining examples of where air quality action has been undertaken well? Rosamund: It would have to be the second inquest into Ella’s death in December 2020, as well as ULEZ. These are monumental things that will change people’s lives and create a healthier London and nation. HL: What do you believe are the biggest challenges we have in the UK around providing a healthy environment with great air quality, where people can thrive? Rosamund: Political action. There is a nervousness from politicians regarding air quality. What is needed is a public health campaign to explain to people the link between air pollution and good health. Some of the measures mean people will have to give something up, which we don’t like to do. But when we show people we’re doing it for the ultimate good, it will be accepted. There is a long way to go.
Above: Artist Dryden Goodwin, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan, Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah CBE and Invisible Dust Producer Lucy Wood with a projection of ‘Breathe For Ella’ depicting Rosamund fighting for breath. Produced by art-science organisation Invisible Dust. Photo: David Parry / PA Wire for Invisible Dust, 2023
Breathing is taken for granted. A person can go two weeks without food, two days without water, but only two minutes without breathing.
We are not only challenged in not exacerbating environmental emergency issues, but uniquely placed to bring about positive improvement. There needs to be a collaborative effort, with drivers brought in at Government level to instigate a step change in how we all engage with the air we breathe.
Chris Rush Air Quality Lead, Hoare Lea
HL: How can engineers, designers, people active in shaping our built environment, contribute most effectively right now, and make a difference? Rosamund: We all need to know what we are doing. There needs to be more opportunity for people to collaborate; we can’t work in silos but we don’t know what different people and professions are doing. People need to understand that non-communicable diseases, autoimmune diseases, Parkinson’s, infertility, miscarriage, depression, suicide, cardiovascular illness, strokes and more diseases are all linked to air pollution. The coroner in Ella’s second inquest was clear in saying that unless air pollution is cleaned up, more children will die. In some classes, people are living longer, in others they are not, and we need to understand why. HL: How can we disrupt the status quo to create real change? What will it take to make people feel invested? Rosamund: We know from our experience with Covid that people care about health. The more people demand clean air, the more governments will get nervous. Getting 100,000 signatures on Ella’s Law will be a start, because it will suddenly make politicians think ‘Oh my goodness, 100,000 people want this’. Wherever you have mass groupings of people demanding something, it’s powerful. With numerous elections taking place in 2024, people need to let politicians know that this is something they care about and that, if they want their vote, they are going to have to do something about it. HL: We wouldn’t drink a glass of dirty water, so why do we breathe dirty air? Do you have thoughts on how we reframe the conversation to ensure real action is taken, and create more emphasis on air quality and how crucial it is to us all? Rosamund: Breathing is taken for granted. A person can go two weeks without food, two days without water, but only two minutes without breathing. It’s a natural action, so we don’t think about it until we can’t breathe. Letting people know how closely our breath is linked to air quality is important. It’s about having an opportunity to show people what they’re breathing in. We know what it looks like to drink dirty water, but a lot of people still can’t ‘see’ dirty air, especially PM2.5 which is the worst pollutant.
Knowledge is power: the conversation-starting creative solutions of the activist engineer.
Activist engineering asks how we can create engineering outcomes that have a more positive impact on the world around us. A really great example of this is the Mindful Droid.
In addition to COP26, the 10th anniversary of the passing of Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah inspired industrial designer and design engineer Michael Omotosho (pictured) to create an environmental sensor development kit measuring CO2, VOC (volatile organic compound) and PM (particulate matter) with engineering community RS Design Spark.
Michael wanted to create something that would help change policy and increase parental awareness of the risks air pollution poses to their children, giving them access to the data and helping them choose how they react. The Mindful Droid is a child-friendly open-source IOT modular air quality sensor device that allows users to make, monitor and collect data on indoor and outdoor air pollution levels, helping them make informed decisions and take action on air quality.
The interface allows for easy understanding and real-time corrective and preventative actions and the device features LED pixels that display air pollution readings to encourage activism among schoolchildren. Back and forth on the school commute, it can tell them about congestion around the area, generating greater awareness of vehicle emissions and starting conversations.
Michael took the Mindful Droid on trips to school with his own kids and ended up down a rabbit hole of discovery in terms of what air pollution, known as a ‘silent killer’, is doing to people.
This data would previously only have been available to academics or corporations, and the heightened awareness it hopes to create could prompt individuals to reconsider their daily actions and lifestyle choices, leading to more environmentally conscious decisions – even, potentially, a citizen science movement in their neighbourhood.
Recently shortlisted for the inaugural Engineering & Manufacturing Awards’ Engineering Impact Award, Michael is the embodiment of the maxim ‘be the change you want to see’.
Above: Dryden Goodwin’s climate-conscious art, showing people striving to inhale and exhale, went on display for Breathe: 2022 at sites around the South Circular road near where Ella lived. Image courtesy of the artist and Invisible Dust, 2023.
HL: Now, we can hardly imagine sitting in a restaurant with someone smoking beside us as we eat, but that was acceptable not so long ago. In your view, what are the next steps in successfully changing mass behaviour, the way we have with the smoking ban, seatbelts, single-use plastics? Rosamund: A key thing for me, now, is to show people the damage caused by wood-burning; how antisocial it is. When you burn wood, it goes outside through the chimney and affects everyone on your road, not just you. We need to be a more compassionate society. Wood-burning is so carcinogenic, but it has an image of being cosy and nice. We must demonstrate the impacts to people. HL: Do you think people have enough information to make decisions and take action relating to poor air quality? How could this be improved? Rosamund: The coroner was clear in saying that there needs to be more monitoring and the information needs to be made accessible to people. If you ask people if they know what the air quality is wherever they are sitting or standing right now, the answer would be ‘no’. Do they know the air quality around their homes? No. Councils have to get better at communicating this information. I would love to have a day where there is something visual about air pollution in the area. It would even impact people who drive. You can never have enough clear, evidence-based information. The air pollution story is bad enough – seven million people worldwide die prematurely every year because of air pollution, according to the World Health Organisation. About 10% of the UK population have asthma. So it’s not about frightening people, it’s about telling them what’s going on.
HL: What’s been the most valuable thing you’ve learned since embarking on your campaigning journey? Rosamund: Listening to people’s experiences, from all walks of life. Also learning to always tell the truth, including admitting when you don’t know something. People gain confidence in you when you are honest, and when you listen to what they have to say. I’ve also learned that governments and authorities need to do better at communicating with people about their health. People want to know what the government is doing.
HL: And the most rewarding part of your work so far? Rosamund: The most rewarding parts are the changes we have seen – ULEZ, how asthma is treated, the people who have been saved even if we never hear about them. It’s about saving lives. Air quality is still poor, but it’s improving.
HL: What will you be looking at next? Rosamund: Air pollution is a pandemic; it’s everywhere. It’s the COP28 climate conference in Dubai in December and this year it will, for the first time ever, feature both physical and mental health, which is essential. There will also be a major air pollution conference in Ghana in October 2024 (I am Ghanaian but haven’t been there in a long time). They will be making clean air a human right and that is an enormous step that I am very proud of.
Sign the petition for Ella’s Law here: petition.parliament.uk/petitions/639320 ellaroberta.org
Film Credits:
Breathe For Ella, Feb 15th 2023. Film. Ronnie Danaher for Invisible Dust, 2023.
On the 10th anniversary of the passing of 9-year-old Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah – the first person in the world to have ‘air pollution’ listed as a cause of death – a new iteration of artist Dryden Goodwin’s iconic ‘Breathe’ animation was projected large-scale on London’s South Bank in her memory.
Illuminating the side of the Rambert Building, aptly positioned next to the busy Waterloo Bridge, were animated images of Ella’s mother – the extraordinary clean air campaigner Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah CBE – ‘fighting for breath’. Produced by art-science organisation Invisible Dust with the support of the Clean Air Fund and Mayor of London.