International healthcare and development provider Amref Health Africa is seeking to establish an international university with focus on health-related courses to meet the need for public and community health experts for the continent. Amref has already applied for the Letter of Interim Authority and a charter to enable it to offer degree courses.
Director for Training, Amref Health Africa, Dr Peter Ngatia, said Amref is working closely with the Kenya government to ensure that it meets all requirements for the charter. He said the Ministry of Education is guiding Amref through the process.
Ngatia was speaking during Amref’s 30th Graduation Ceremony where 264 health workers (143 midwives, 21 community health specialists and 100 nurses) earned their degrees through a collaborative blended eLearning programme with the University of Nairobi’s College of Health Sciences.
Ngatia said the Nursing Council of Kenya (NCK) has also approved Amref’s pre-service Comprehensive Nursing training Programme.
“Our partners, Aga Khan University Hospital (AKUH), Karen Hospital, the Kajiado County Hospital, the Meridian-Equator Hospital, the Gertrude Children’s Hospital and City County of Nairobi health facilities contributed immensely to this accreditation,” said Ngatia.
The theme of this years’ graduation was Accelerating Sustainable Development Goals through Higher Education, underpinning the vehicle by which Amref Health Africa intends to reverse the crippling health trends in Africa.
Amref is currently implementing a portfolio of over 60 projects in 32 countries in Africa, which are benefiting hundreds of communities in rural and urban settings. This year, alone its projects have provided services directly and indirectly to over 20 million people in Africa.
In Kenya, it has projects in all counties, reaching close to five million people. Amref’s strength in designing upstream eLearning solutions has also led to Clintons’ Global Initiative (CGI) engaging Amref to train over 10,000 Community Health Workers (CHWs) in Kenya using the LEAP mLearning platform, which has already helped to train over 3,000 CHWs from 13 counties in Kenya in a span of three years.
