Events
- Date:
- Thursday, 21 Feb 2019
- Time:
- 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.
- Location:
- Room 201, International Center
- Department:
- African Studies Center
Global Health Alliances Across Nations, Agencies (NIH/NSF/NASA), and Institutions To Build Capacity in Africa
Esperance Kashala-Abotnes, MD, PhD
Lecturer and Postdoctoral Research Fellow
University of Kinshasa and University of Bergen
E-mail:
Desire Tshala-Katumbay, MD, MPH PhD
Professor of Neurology
University of Kinshasa and the Oregon Health and Sciences University
E-mail:
Michael J. Boivin, PhD, MPH
Professor of Psychiatry and of Neurology & Ophthalmology
Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine
E-mail:
ABSTRACT
Our Michigan State University Alliance for African Partnership (AAP) project builds upon an existing global health alliance of US, EU, Australia, and African institutions; alliance of which the focus evolved around the issues of climate variations, food and water insecurities, and impact on child development. This partnership is embedded within a NIH-sponsored research program for scaling up a community-based intervention to prevent konzo, a neurological disease affecting impoverished women and children, and caused by cyanide toxicity from poorly processed cassava. Our leadership team will share various challenges faced and lessons learned over the years as they pertain to the three pillars of the AAP program namely transforming lives, transforming institutions, and building bridges. The present partnership brought opportunities for team leaders to deepen and expand on collaboration for high-impact intervention research in the DRC, where only few American and European universities have sustained partnerships. Speakers will share challenges faced and lessons learned as she has facilitated resource sharing and capacity building between early childhood caregiver training research used pertaining to neurodevelopmental needs in children from konzo-stricken areas. Although highly beneficial, a number of language, cultural, and logistical barriers make such global collaborative partnerships challenging and difficult.