Marlene Ogawa is Country Director at Synergos South Africa.  At the heart of Marlene’s work is personal transformation for social change.  The work emphasises relational leadership and social connectedness for personal and collaborative systems change. It focusses on building a sense of belonging for individuals in their systems and collective innovation for sustainable solutions.Marlene is a member of the Global Initiative of Loneliness and Connection.  She has been invited onto the World Health Organisation’s Social Connections Stakeholders Group, providing policy and practice input to the Executive Committee.  This is linked to the work of the UN Commission for Social Connections.