This Week in Advocacy - Vol. 6
Equity, Presence & Policy
Every week I get to do something that genuinely fills me up: stop and name the people who are out there doing the work. Not the press releases. Not the polished campaigns. The real, gritty, meaningful work of showing up in rooms that weren’t always built for us, and changing what happens inside them. This is Vol. 6 of Advocacy at Work’s weekly advocate spotlight, and I’m especially proud of the three people I’m highlighting this week. Each of them is operating at the intersection of community, policy, and lived experience in a way that reminds me exactly why this work matters. Let’s get into it.
Deondre Williams LinkedIn
When the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force lowered the recommended colorectal cancer screening age to 45, the headlines celebrated it as a win. And in many ways, it was. But Deondre Williams has been asking the harder question: a win for whom?
Deondre was selected as a mainstage speaker at Equity in GI 2026 in Washington, D.C., where he presented on “The Untold Equity Story Behind the Age 45 CRC Screening Shift: Too Young, Too Late in Black Communities.” That title alone should stop you in your tracks. Because the data is clear — Black Americans are diagnosed with colorectal cancer at younger ages and die from it at higher rates. A policy shift that doesn’t account for that reality isn’t just incomplete; it’s dangerous.
Deondre is doing what the best advocates do: he’s not letting a policy win become a distraction from a deeper inequity. He’s taking that tension to a mainstage audience in the nation’s capital, speaking truth with evidence and urgency. That’s courage. That’s advocacy. I am so proud to see him in that room.
Mila Ogalla Toledo LinkedIn
There’s a phrase that gets thrown around in advocacy circles: “nothing about us without us.” Mila Ogalla Toledo isn’t just saying it, she’s living it.
A patient advocate and EUPATI Fellow, Mila spoke on a panel at ESMO GI 2026 in Munich alongside Digestive Cancers Europe, reflecting on what it actually means to be in the rooms where decisions about patients get made. Those rooms — the oncology conferences, the clinical policy discussions, the European regulatory conversations — have historically been filled with clinicians, researchers, and industry representatives. The patient voice has often been an afterthought, if it was invited at all.
What struck me about Mila’s moment is how she framed it: not just as an achievement, but as a reflection. She’s thinking critically about presence and power, about what it means to be at the table and whether the table itself is set up to actually hear you. That kind of self-aware advocacy is rare and it’s powerful. Mila is building a blueprint for what meaningful patient inclusion looks like in European oncology spaces, and I’m watching with deep admiration.
Rachel Bhagwat LinkedIn
Sometimes advocacy looks like a protest sign. Sometimes it looks like a job title that didn’t exist before you helped make the case for it.
Rachel Bhagwat was just named Deputy Director of Cross-Systems Advocacy at the County Behavioral Health Directors Association (CBHDA) — a newly created role focused on some of the most complex and contested terrain in behavioral health policy: involuntary treatment, CARE Court, and criminal court processes. These are not easy issues. They sit at the crossroads of mental health, civil rights, housing, and the criminal legal system, and they affect some of the most vulnerable and underserved people in our communities.
The fact that CBHDA created this role, and that Rachel is the one stepping into it, tells me that the advocacy community is starting to recognize that cross-systems thinking isn’t optional anymore. Rachel brings the kind of nuanced, policy-grounded perspective that these conversations desperately need. This is a big deal, and I don’t want it to get lost in the feed. Congratulations, Rachel.
That’s Vol. 6. Three advocates. Three different arenas. One common thread: they showed up, they spoke up, and they made the work better for everyone who comes after them.
If this landed with you, please subscribe so you never miss a spotlight. And if you know someone doing advocacy work that deserves to be named — in health, behavioral health, policy, community organizing, wherever — nominate them for next week. Hit reply or click the nomination link. These folks deserve to be seen.