African Conversations Series

Feb 9 - Road Traffic Crashes and Injuries in Kenya and Rwanda

Nov 25 - Canada-Africa Relations and Strategy including Implications for the COP27 Agenda

Oct 26 - Prenatal Exposire to Genocide: The Case of Rwanda

Oct 24 - Impact of Climate Change on Food Security, Agricultural Practices, Health and Wellbeing in Uganda: The St. Jude Case Study

During our October African Conversations Series there was an insightful discussion related to Africa’s history, led by two Africa Institute members who recently defended their PhD theses.

Dr. Solomon is the Program Coordinator for the Global Health Systems MMASc. Her PhD thesis was on the topic: "Rooted in History, Representations and Perceptions of Ethiopian Identities in Canada". Her work examines intersections in Canadian and Ethiopian History which facilitated the mass representation of Ethiopian identities in Canada.

Dr. Ezenwa is a community connector with the City of London. She is also a part time faculty member and writing specialist at the King’s University College. Her PhD research was on the topic: “Bible Translations and Literary Responses: Re-reading Missionary Interventions in Africa through Local Perspectives”. Through her work, Chinelo reflects on the implications of 19 ^th century missionary interventions for Africans, by drawing attention to how missionary translations and schooling facilitated colonial rule in Africa.

"Biomedical engineering in low-resource settings (LRSs)"

The United Nations’ 17 sustainable development goals are based on the principle of “leaving no one behind”. In particular, SDG3 focuses on Health and Wellbeing, striving for equitable healthcare access, worldwide. Notwithstanding, the actual situation is still far from being equitable. Although most of the world’s population is treated in low-income countries, only a small oligarchy of high-income countries rules the medical device market, setting and following de facto standards and minimum requirements, which do not take into consideration the scarcity of resources and the harsh conditions of low-resource settings. This mismatch hinders the safe and efficient functioning of medical devices, jeopardizing the life of patients and healthcare workers.

In this context, the Applied Biomedical Signal Processing Intelligent eHealth Lab (ABSPIE) has been working on several projects since 2016, to assess the main challenges and conditions of local medical devices and locations, in South Africa, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Benin. These studies informed the creation of a framework for assessing medical locations in low-resource settings, for designing medical devices resilient to low-resource settings, and several frugal designs of medical devices. This webinar will give an overview of the ABSPIE Lab experience in Africa, with a specific focus on clinical and biomedical engineering, and ethics.

"Identifying and explaining shifts in FGM/C through Bayesian multivariate analyses of household survey data for Kenya, Nigeria, and Senegal"

Dr. Ngianga-Bakwin Kandala (Distinguished Professor of Biostatistics, School of Public Health, University of Witwatersrand & Visiting Professor of Health Technology Assessment, University of Warwick), Dr. Ava John-Baptiste (Associate Professor of Epidemiology & Biostatistics and of Anesthesia & Perioperative Medicine, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University), and Dr. Janet Martin (Associate Professor of Anesthesia & Perioperative Medicine and of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University)

"How equipped is Africa to tackle the wicked problem of road traffic injuries?"

Dr. Melecki Khayesi, Technical Officer, World Health Organization
Video can be accessed here

" Education as a Social and Economic Game Changer"

Dr. Teresiah Wambui Gathenya (Senior Education Advisor for USAID Liberia), Hannah Nungari (Youth Advocate), Daniel Mwangi (Youth Advocate), 
Video can be accessed here
A few testimonials from the April talk:

"What a rich legacy you have imparted in these young people, education indeed is transformative. I could feel their passion in what they [Hannah and Daniel] are doing to give back to society. As Nungari put it, you do not have a granary to share. Very inspiring indeed." (Ms. Francisca Opondo, former Senior Assistant Director in the Ministry of Education Kenya).  

"Such students should be left to learn free." (Ms. Miriam Mwirotsi, Former Director of Education in the Ministry of Education, Kenya) 

"Wow! That was inspirational. I liked Nungari's positivity. Both the young participants will go far."(Ms. Beatrice Kamau from Nungari's home village).

Ebenezer Martin-Yeboah, " Young men and sexual health literacy: A social network analysis", PhD Candidate in Health Information Sciences, Faculty of Information and Media Studies
Florence Wullo Anfaara, " The Internal Logics of Gender Equality in Liberia: The case of women in Peace Huts", PhD Candidate in Gender, Sexuality & Women's Studies, Faculty of Arts & Humanities
Jason Were, " The Double Burden of Malnutrition in Sub-Saharan Africa", PhD Candidate in Epidemiology & Biostatistics, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry