Moi University–IUPUI Peace Symposium

A Peace Symposium co-sponsored by Moi University and Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis will be held 12-14 May in Eldoret, Kenya. The theme is Youth Empowerment for Peace, Reconciliation and Development. See the call for papers. Deadline for submission of abstracts is 26 March.


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Kenya Project Receives $5 Million to Expand Care

A partnership between Indiana and Kenya is receiving a 3-year, $5 million grant from USAID to expand health care in western Kenya, reports Inside INdiana Business. Academic Model Providing Access to Healthcare (AMPATH), a collaboration between the IU School of Medicine and Kenya's Moi University School of Medicine and Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, will use the grant and other private funds to expand its network of clinics in the sub-Saharan nation.

AMPATH, the joint partnership between Indiana University School of Medicine, the Moi (Eldoret, Kenya) University School of Medicine and Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, has received a 3-year, $5 million USAID supplement grant to expand health care services in western Kenya.

AMPATH – the Academic Model Providing Access to Healthcare – received a 5-year, $60 million grant from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) in 2007 to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS in Kenya. AMPATH is the outgrowth of an IU School of Medicine and Moi University partnership formed 20 years ago.

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Legal Aid Center in Kenya

A legal aid organization has been established in Kenya thanks to the efforts of Judge Patricia Riley, Indiana Court of Appeals, and Fran Quigley, director of operations for the Indiana University partnership between the IU School of Medicine and Moi University in Eldoret, Kenya.

The Legal Aid Center of Eldoret (LACE) officially started in September 2008 with a small staff and initial funding from the Reuben Family Foundation and the Indianapolis Rotary Club. LACE is currently located in the hospital where the AMPATH program has IU physicians and medical students helping Kenyans living with HIV/AIDS.

Riley and Quigley, both of whom are alumni of the IU School of Law in Indianapolis, started LACE because many of the medical patients are in need of legal as well as medical help.

The law school plans to collaborate with LACE by offering a Kenyan lawyer or lawyers a full scholarship to attend the LL.M. program in Indianapolis on condition that they agree to work at least two years as a staff attorney at LACE, as well as to coordinate legal work assistance for LACE from volunteer LL.M. graduates and students while enrolled as an LL.M. student.

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IU School of Medicine Reports on Children's HIV

Researchers from the Indiana University School of Medicine, the Regenstrief Institute and Moi University School of Medicine are the first to report that adherence to antiretroviral therapy (ART) to fight human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in children who live in low income countries is as high as or higher than adherence by children living in high income countries.

These findings, which were the results of review and analysis of all published studies of pediatric adherence to ART in low income countries, appear in the August 2008 issue of The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal, and provide the first complete picture of ART adherence among individuals under age 18 in limited income countries, as defined by the World Bank.

Ninety percent of the 2.3 million HIV-infected children in the world live in sub-Saharan Africa. Understanding children's adherence in resource-limited countries presents a critical challenge, because they have limited options if viral resistance develops.

The review by the American-Kenya research team found that 76 percent of the studies among children in lower income countries reported more than 75 percent adherence to their medicines for HIV. Other studies have shown a pediatric adherence rate of lower than 75 percent in high income countries.

You can read more here

$5 Million Grant to Indiana University-Kenya Partnership

The National Institutes of Health has chosen the Indiana University-Kenya Partnership to join the Global Network for Women’s and Infant’s Health Research, according to I.U. News Bureau. The designation includes a five-year, $5 million grant to allow the Indiana University School of Medicine to study the feasibility and effectiveness of community-based health-care interventions. This five-year, $5 million grant will allow Indiana University School of Medicine and Moi University School of Medicine faculty to conduct research to demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of simple, community-based health-care interventions such as protein supplementation for infants and training of traditional birth attendants in the proper care of obstetrical and neonatal emergencies. The Global Network, funded jointly by the NIH and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, conducts clinical research projects throughout the developing world. The IU-Moi University site in Eldoret, Kenya, is one of two network sites in Africa.

Indianapolis and Eldoret, "We Are Together"

"We are together" in Kiswahili (a major language of Kenya) is "Tuko Pamoja" -- and that's the title of an evening planned from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday (1 February) in the Harrison Center for the Arts, 1505 North Delaware Street, Indianapolis. Indianapolis has many connections with (especially) Eldoret, Indy's newest Sister City, including the Indiana University School of Medicine's collaborations with Moi University. There'll also be volun-tourists from Ambassadors for Children (who've just returned from Kenya), Indianapolis Rotarians, who are launching a clean water program in Eldoret, OMOJA (a project of Global Interfaith Partnership), and more. Come to learn and enjoy -- sample Kenyan food, listen to African stories and music, and talk to Hoosiers who've been there. For more information, contact John Clark or Gwyneth Sutherlin.

Eldoret Caught Up in Kenyan Violence

"The Eldoret area has become a killing zone." That's the bottom line in a news article in The New York Times on the mayhem in Kenya following the disputed election last week. Unfortunately for many Hoosiers, Indiana has a strong presence in Eldoret with the Indiana University School of Medicine's partnership with Moi University.

UPDATE:
A community prayer service has been organized by the Global Interfaith Partnership, a coalition of 10 churches and synagogues that are addressing the problems of orphans resulting from HIV/AIDS in Kenya. It starts at 4 p.m. Sunday (6 January) in North United Methodist Church, 38th and Meridian streets, Indianapolis.

$60 Million to AMPATH

AMPATH, a program that grew out of the partnership between Indiana University School of Medicine and the Moi (Kenya) University Teaching and Referral Hospital, has received a 5-year, $60-million grant to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS in Kenya, according to the IU School of Medicine. In addition, the IU School of Medicine will augment this with $6 million over the 5 years of the grant. With this agreement, the goal is to expand the program to provide care to an additional 150,000 Kenyans with HIV by 2012, of which at least 70,000 will be on antiretroviral drugs, and to interrupt the transmission of HIV through home-based counseling and testing in communities served by 19 facilities. In addition, the partnership intends to improve and expand control of tuberculosis, and assist and engage communities and families to meet the basic needs of 20,000 orphans and vulnerable children within the first 2 years of the grant. The grant was announced in Nairobi on Nov. 19 during a signing ceremony in the Ministry of Health Headquarters attended by Henrietta H. Fore, the administrator of USAID; Robert Einterz, M.D., associate dean for international affairs at the IU School of Medicine and co-founder of the IU-Moi partnership and AMPATH; U.S. Ambassador to Kenya Michael E. Ranneberger; AA/AFR Katherine J. Almquist; USAID/Kenya Mission Director Erna Kerst; Joe Mamlin, M.D., IU professor emeritus and co-founder of the IU-Moi Partnership; and, Moi University and USAID administrators and staff members. (AMPATH is the Academic Model for Prevention and Treatment of HIV/AIDS, which now treats over 55,000 HIV-positive patients at 19 sites in both urban and rural Kenya -- locations are shown on the map.)

More Connections between IUPUI and Moi University

Peter Basara and Ruth Otunga, two professors from the Moi University School of Education, are in Indiana to learn how to improve teacher training in Kenya, according to the news bureau at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis. The Indiana University School of Education at IUPUI is working on a continuing relationship with the school of education at Moi University, located in Eldoret, Kenya. The IU School of Medicine, located at IUPUI, joined forces for health care in 1989, primarily focusing on fighting the AIDS pandemic. During their stay in Indiana, the professors will visit Indianapolis schools, attend several School of Education classes and go to a professional education conference in Pittsburgh. Much of the visit is focused on creating a professional development center for educators at Moi.

Blogging about IUPUI in Kenya

Diane "Petey" Scott, a student at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis, has been blogging about her time in Eldoret, Kenya.

A recent post:
"I love the days that I get to go out for field work in the rural areas. The landscape is by far the most fascinating and diverse of any place in the world that I have ever been. One day I am watching an orange and purple sunset drop behind mountain peaks as I head for home and the next I am trekking into the interior across tree dotted plains under the bluest sky I have every seen. It is so beautiful here that I am convinced Kenya is the place that Mother Nature calls home."

Learn more about IUPUI's Eldoret project.

A Nobel Peace Prize Nomination!

According to the Indiana University School of Medicine, A humanitarian response to the African HIV/AIDS pandemic by Indiana University School of Medicine and its education partner in Kenya, Moi University School of Medicine, has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

The program, AMPATH (Academic Model for Prevention and Treatment of HIV/AIDS) was only a concept 7 years ago. Through the efforts of its field director, Joseph Mamlin, M.D., and faculty involved in the IU-Kenya Partnership, AMPATH now treats 42,000 HIV-positive Kenyan patients at 19 clinical sites throughout western Kenya. It also provides food assistance to 20,000 people and job and agricultural training to thousands more.

More than 1.3 million Kenyan men, women and children are living with HIV/AIDS. AMPATH addresses the social stigma of the disease while providing medication and helping people become self-sufficient by providing food, jobs and agricultural assistance.

In the Nobel Peace Prize nomination, Scott Pegg, Ph.D., from Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, and Butler University's David Mason, Ph.D., both professors of political science, noted that AMPATH has been recognized as one of the world’s most comprehensive and innovative AIDS control programs.

"This partnership is not only one of the largest and most comprehensive HIV/AIDS programs in the world, it is a model of U.S.-Africa institutional cooperation. This model can be replicated throughout the developing world, and thus put a halt to a pandemic that may soon pass the Black Death to become the most brutal killer in human history," Pegg and Mason said in the letter of nomination.

Pegg and Mason also cited Dr. Mamlin, professor emeritus of medicine at the IU School of Medicine, as a driving force behind the program.

Dr. Mamlin was a team leader of the collaborative medical education program at the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital in Eldoret, Kenya, in the early 1990s. At that time, he witnessed 85 patient deaths over the course of a year. When he returned full-time to Kenya in 2000, he saw more than 1,000 patients die during a similar period. From that poignant loss, AMPATH was born.

"I find encouragement that thousands around the world are responding faithfully to some of the real pain suffered by so many," says Dr. Mamlin. "While much of this pain is physical, the real tragedy is the loss of hope in single individuals. When any of us find a moment in our lives when we can relieve pain and restore hope, we have already won the Nobel Peace Prize."

Robert Einterz, M.D. (pictured), IU professor of medicine and director and co-founder of the IU-Kenya Partnership, says, "The Hoosiers that are leading the global fight against HIV are the same Hoosiers that are teaching at the Indiana University School of Medicine and serving vulnerable populations in Indianapolis. Through this partnership, Indiana University demonstrates its commitment to health for all people."

AMPATH is one of 181 nominees for the 2007 Prize, whose winner will be announced in mid-October. In 2006, Muhammad Yunus and his Grameen Bank, which provides micro-credit for low-income entrepreneurs in the developing world, won the Peace Prize.

IU's Moi University Partnership lauded in WSJ

"In Kenya, AIDS Therapy Includes Fresh Vegetables"
By Roger Thurow
Wall Street Journal
Wednesday, 28 March 2007

"ELDORET, Kenya -- Just beyond the morgue of Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, Dr. Joe Mamlin, a professor of medicine at Indiana University, questions his staff on their latest progress in the war on AIDS.
"How much food are we harvesting today?" he asks. "How many people are we feeding?"
Stretching over two acres of the hospital grounds is a garden of carrots, onions, cabbage, collard greens and fruit trees. A stream meanders by, providing water for drip irrigation. This land and other farms around the city tilled by Dr. Mamlin's team yield four tons of vegetables and fruit each ...."

Unfortunately, one must be an online subscriber to read the whole article, which started on page one of today’s Wall Street Journal. For more on the partnership between the IU School of Medicine at IUPUI and Moi University, click here.

Kenyan MP to visit IUPUI Monday

The Right Honorable Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka, Kenyan Member of Parliament, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, and presidential candidate for the 2007 elections will visit Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis on Monday, February 5.

At 4 p.m. there is a public lecture on "Kenya in the 21st Century—Challenges and Opportunities" in the Wynne Court Room (IH 100) of the IU School of Law – Indianapolis, 530 W. New York St.

The event, which is free and open to the public, will include a forum about business opportunities in and with Kenya, which will open with a short presentation of the Kenyan economy, to be followed by Indiana companies and organizations interested in East Africa presenting their goods and services.

For more information, contact Michael Chowning.

IUPUI has numerous connections with Kenya, including the university's first strategic alliance with Moi University in Eldoret.

Monday's visit marks the first high-ranking Kenyan official to visit IUPUI since the partnership with Moi University was signed in November.