Alex is in his final year of training at Makerere University (MUK) Medical School and a graduate of the Brighter Smiles Africa program, which is our Ugandan school-based Health Promotion initiative that has been delivered successfully for the last 6 years through a partnership between the Faculties of Medicine at Makerere and the University of British Columbia, with the following three principal objectives:
To improve the health knowledge and determinants of health of rural Ugandan children through a school-based health promotion program delivered collaboratively by MUK College of Health Sciences undergraduates with teachers engaged and supported in community schools.
To provide previously unavailable opportunities for Ugandan Medical School trainees to experience valid community-based learning opportunities, through attachment in rural communities, and involvement in developing and delivering preventive health education, and
To foster international collaboration and mutual learning, in the context of improving child health globally, and to build capacity at MUK in educational program evaluation and research.
The international colloquium has been planned in recognition of the success of the Ugandan health promoting school (HPS) initiative, and will bring together international exerts and workers in the field to synthesize their key experience and evaluation of HPS models, and develop a manual for others to use to set up comparable programs in Sub-Saharan Africa.
After attending the colloquium Alex will work with us in the week afterwards on preparing the “How to” manual for starting programs in other schools in Sub-Saharan Africa. His reprise of his workshop presentation, and being there to join the discussion groups, will contribute a great deal to the understanding of other participants about the unique educational opportunities for medical students afforded by participation in community-based child health promotion programs in schools.
No comments:
Post a Comment