Terrible news came through this week – the sudden, unexpected and horribly premature death of my friend and colleague, Pablo Suarez.
Pablo was a maverick, Boston-based Argentine who broke boundaries and charted new paths in communicating some of the most pressing challenges of our age. Can’t believe he’s gone, and judging by the outpouring of grief and memories on social media, nor can many other people who loved working with and learning from him.
I knew, worked with, and was delighted by Pablo for nearly 15 years, with the inevitable traces on the blog. Here are some of them:
First encounters: Pablo leads DFID staff in a climate change simulation game, 2011
Covid, 2020: Pablo Suarez discusses the role of humour in driving change, and introduces our Corona-cartoon Competition
2021: Back to the Old Drawing Board: the power of humour in social change. Pablo’s collaborator and ace New Yorker cartoonist Pat Byrnes reflects on the 80th anniversary of a historic cartoon and what it tells us about social change.
2021: 7 Cartoons that could just help the IPCC Save the Planet. Written by me, but instigated by Pablo
2022: Pablo on Humanitarian insights from the latest IPCC report – via cartoons and cardboard theater
Here’s the man himself on using humour to communicate on humanitarian emergencies and climate change
Can’t believe we’ll never have any more crazy conversations, when you tell me how you just got a hundred World Bank staffers writing and performing a rap song, or signed up for a course in stand-up comedy just in case it was useful. The development sector (hell, the world) needs more people like you Pablo. Rest in Power.
I will miss him a lot too.
And i agree the world needs more Pablos.
Thank You!
So sad. Sincere condolences to his family and friends. The world lost an incredible human being!
Incredible person – big loss for our community!
🙏 Duncan. Pablo loved working with you and appreciated receptivity across all of the Oxfam families to constructive disruption of the status quo – & the many opportunities to heat up hearts & minds to scale up replacing what is wrong with what is just 🌟
Author
Thankyou so much Janot, my heart and thoughts are with you right now
Pablo came tumbling into my life in 1998 while we were both students at The Muskie School of Public Service. A pin prick of a grad school then, made all the richer by Pablo’s last minute decision to attend. Pablo was the biggest tent on the planet. Always, always room for one more. I’m sorry for all of you for his passing.