Ethiopia

U of T oral and maxillofacial surgeons save lives while training future doctors in Ethiopia

geoff.vendeville — Wed, 08 Jan 2020 18:48:04 +0000

U of T oral and maxillofacial surgeons save lives while training future doctors in Ethiopia

geoff.vendeville Wed, 01/08/2020 - 13:48

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Drs. Karl Cuddy (left) and Marco Caminiti (right), both of U of T's Faculty of Dentistry, pictured with Dr. Demerew of Addis Ababa University (photo courtesy of Marco Caminiti)

Erin Vollick

Topic

Global Lens

Toronto Addis Ababa Academic Collaboration

Ethiopia

Faculty of Dentistry

Faculty of Medicine

Global

Inside St. Peter's Specialized Hospital in Addis Ababa, patients lined the halls with ailments including head and neck tumours, kerosene burns, cleft lips and hyena bites.

They were waiting to be assessed by the first group of maxillofacial surgery residents at Addis Ababa University – and by a trio of oral and maxillofacial surgeons from the ��Ƶ’s Faculty of Dentistry.

The U of T group took part in the first shared initiative between the Toronto Addis Ababa Academic Collaboration (TAAAC) and the surgical non-profit, Face the Future, which was founded by Canadian surgeon Dr. Peter Adamson. TAAAC is a partnership between U of T and Addis Ababa University that aims to promote academic training, teaching support and research collaboration in many different fields, including dentistry.

The universities and Face the Future had shared goals: to provide ongoing training for residents of the newly formed maxillofacial surgery program and to treat complex cases.

Faculty of Dentistry Assistant Professor Marco Caminiti gave lectures during the two-week stay while the AAU residents and attending surgeons received specialized hands-on training and worked alongside their U of T colleagues.

“The planning, surgeries and post-operative procedures were our way of training the residents in the essential practical skills they need,” said Caminiti, who is also the graduate specialty program director in oral and maxillofacial surgery at U of T.

Over the course of their visit, the team, which included U of T Assistant Professor Karl Cuddy and graduate resident Michael Laschuk, operated on dozens of patients and assessed many more.

The team faced challenges that included a lack of critical resources and surgical tools to language barriers.

Sometimes the surgeries were high-risk, complex procedures that lasted a full day. One such operation involved a total maxillectomy, requiring the removal of a patient's jaw, part of the nose and skin to cut out a large tumour.

Caminiti remains in touch with Dr. Demerew, his AAU colleague and director of the Addis Ababa University oral surgery program, via WhatsApp. “The relationships we forged there are very strong,” Caminiti says.

While the Addis Ababa maxillofacial surgery residents improved their core knowledge and surgical techniques, they weren’t the only ones to gain from the exchange.

“It was very humbling,” Cuddy says of his first trip to Addis Ababa. “I learned a lot about how to deal with resource limitations and challenges that we face on a completely different scale.”

Both Cuddy and Caminiti plan to return to Ethiopia for another teaching opportunity. Next time, though, they don’t want to arrive empty-handed. They want to put the word out that they’re looking for donations of specialized surgical equipment such as surgical drills, saws and facial plating systems.

“For every person we helped, there were five or six we wished we could have,” says Caminiti.

Next spring, when the first cohort of the maxillofacial surgery program graduates – only the second such program to be established in the country of 109 million people – their colleagues and friends in Canada will be cheering for them.

“It’s a wonderful collaboration between our two universities,” Cuddy says. “We have a lot to offer and we’ve really just scratched the surface.”

U of T, Addis Ababa University strengthen partnership, launch new programs in Ethiopia

Romi Levine — Mon, 03 Dec 2018 05:00:00 +0000

U of T, Addis Ababa University strengthen partnership, launch new programs in Ethiopia

Romi Levine Mon, 12/03/2018 - 00:00

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U of T and Addis Ababa University (pictured) work together to build graduate programs for students in Ethiopia (photo by Giorgio Cosulich/Getty Images)

Topic

Marci Rose remembers hearing an ambulance siren for the first time in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital city.

“It almost took my breath away,” she says.

A noise, taken for granted – or seen as an inconvenience – in a city like Toronto, was a joyous occasion in Ethiopia. It marked the first time emergency medical services were offered in the east African country.

The first cohort of ER doctors graduated from Addis Ababa University in 2013. Before that, there was none.

This pioneering group of life-saving physicians is one of the many successes of the Toronto Addis Ababa Academic Collaboration (TAAAC), a partnership between the ��Ƶ and Addis Ababa University (AAU) where experts in both countries work to build robust graduate programs in Ethiopia’s capital.

Emergency medicine students in Addis Ababa with TAAAC volunteers (photo courtesy of Marci Rose)

TAAAC grew out of a collaborative psychiatry program that began in 2003, led by Dr. Clare Pain, an associate professor of psychiatry at U of T and clinical director of the Psychological Trauma Assessment Clinic at Mount Sinai Hospital, and psychiatrists at AAU.

It has since expanded to include 24 disciplines – from family medicine to engineering and library science – with approximately 80 faculty members travelling to Ethiopia every year to participate in the program as volunteers who provide training, teaching, supervision and support.

“It's exciting to see the multiplier effect the program has had,” says Rose, who is the TAAAC program manager and the occupational therapy lead, and has been a part of the initiative since 2010.

A number of spinoff initiatives have also launched as a result of TAAAC, says Rose, including cervical cancer screenings. “In Ethiopia, the greatest killer of women is cervical cancer,” she says.

Previously, when a patient was diagnosed with cervical cancer, it was often discovered at stage four and already deadly, says Rose. But through a collaboration with family medicine at U of T, Ethiopian health professionals now offer screening services to catch the disease earlier on.

U of T launches class on ancient Ethiopic language with a donation from The Weeknd

geoff.vendeville — Tue, 10 Jan 2017 15:14:44 +0000

U of T launches class on ancient Ethiopic language with a donation from The Weeknd

geoff.vendeville Tue, 01/10/2017 - 10:14

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Professor Michael Gervers (right) also donated $50,000 for the course. He sat in on the first class and got pointers from classmates Gelila Tilahun (centre) and her daughter Tseday Drudge, 16 (photos by Geoffrey Vendeville)

Geoffrey Vendeville

Author legacy

Geoffrey Vendeville

Topic

City & Culture

Faculty of Arts & Science

Language

Ethiopia

Global

Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations

Medieval Studies

Subheadline

The university is now one of the only places in the world where students can learn Ge’ez

Tens of thousands of ancient Ethiopic manuscripts – maybe more – have collected dust for over a century because they are written in what is now a rarely studied language, Ge’ez.

But a new course at the ��Ƶ is teaching a new generation of students to understand the ancient Semitic language so that one day they can access this long-lost trove of knowledge.

This week, Professor Robert Holmstedt of the department of Near and Middle Eastern civilizations welcomed 25 students and members of Toronto’s Ethiopian community to the first day of an introductory course on Ge’ez, which like Latin, is only used in religious services, in this case for the Ethiopian Orthodox and Catholic churches.

Hear CBC Metro Morning talk about the course on Ge'ez

Michael Gervers, a history professor at U of T Scarborough, helped launch the course with a $50,000 donation and a call to Toronto's Ethiopian community to contribute.

The call was answered and the donation matched by none other than Toronto native and Grammy-award winning artist Abel Tesfaye, a.k.a. The Weeknd.

Read about The Weeknd’s donation

The campaign for the language course has a $200,000 goal and has received support from the Faculty of Arts & Science and the Bikila Awards organization, a local Ethiopian community group named after Olympic marathoner Adebe Bikila.

On Monday, just as he had promised, Gervers sat in on the class, hoping to be one of the first to learn the language at U of T.

Although he has been studying ancient Ethiopia for 40 years – he has swung from ropes to explore rock-cut monasteries in Ethiopia and created a database of tens of thousands of photographs of Ethiopian art and culture – Gervers does not know the language.

Amharic-speaking students helped him with his pronunciation when he was asked to recite a letter of the alphabet.

Professor Michael Gervers has studied Ethiopian history and culture for four decades and helped start the Ge'ez course at U of T

The course's first students included members of the Ethiopian and Eritrean communities, students with an interest in Ethiopian culture, medievalists and students in comparative linguistics.

Before any of the students can uncover the secrets of ancient Ethiopic texts, they must learn the basics. In their first class, they were introduced to Ethiopic letters and to the present tense of verbs like “to sit.”

Hours of memorization come next. Holmstedt urged his students to carry a ringlet of flashcards so they can learn the alphabet on the go.

“Walk around campus memorizing words instead of looking at your phone,” Holmstedt said.

Gervers said he hoped the Ge’ez course would be the first of many classes that would form the basis of an Ethiopian studies program at U of T. He has proposed a graduate-level course in the history of Ethiopia.

“Ethiopia is usually left out of the curriculum because it’s so different,” he said. “There is no point of entry through European languages like English, French, Spanish or Italian.”

From swinging ropes to matching funds: Michael Gervers’ passion for Ethiopian studies

lavende4 — Mon, 15 Aug 2016 19:08:55 +0000

From swinging ropes to matching funds: Michael Gervers’ passion for Ethiopian studies

lavende4 Mon, 08/15/2016 - 15:08

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Michael Gervers in Ethiopia

Noreen Ahmed-Ullah

Author legacy

Noreen Ahmed-Ullah

Topic

Our Community

Faculty of Arts & Science

Ethiopia

History

Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations

Long before Grammy-award winning artist The Weeknd donated $50,000 to help launch Ethiopian studies at the ��Ƶ, Michael Gervers was busy exploring, preserving and promoting a largely unknown ancient culture.

A professor in the department of history, Gervers has swung from ropes to get into rock-cut monasteries in Ethiopia. He’s created a database of tens of thousands of photographs– mostly his own – of Ethiopian art and culture.

And for decades, he’s taught one of only a handful of classes in Ethiopian culture and history in North America.

At a local event honouring him for his work on Ethiopian culture 11 months ago, Gervers came up with a novel concept.

He called on the Ethiopian community to raise money for Ethiopian studies at U of T and announced he’d kickstart the cause by matching their donation up to $50,000.

“I thought this was a perfect moment to try and make something happen,” Gervers said. “I gave them a challenge. I said that I would contribute $50,000 of my own money if they could match it. They accepted the challenge.”

Since then, the Ethiopian community group, named the Bikila Award organization after Olympian Abebe Bikila, has been raising funds in earnest. The Faculty of Arts and Science has contributed $50,000. With The Weeknd’s gift, U of T’s department of Near and Middle Eastern civilizations has reached about $170,000 of its $200,000 goal in endowment funds to start a course in Ge’ez, the liturgical language of Ethiopia, in spring 2017.

Department chair Professor Tim Harrison says he hopes that, with continued support, U of T will eventually add more courses and be positioned to launch the first Ethiopian studies program in North America.

Like Latin, Ge’ez is now only used in religious services, in this case for the Ethiopian Orthodox and Catholic Churches. It would be a foundational language for Ethiopian studies, cross-listed with the Centre for Medieval Studies, allowing students in other programs to compare it to other Semitic languages.

"Michael Gervers started out as a historian of medieval England, but has developed into one of the most important scholars in the world today working on the history and culture of medieval Ethiopia," said Professor Suzanne Conklin Akbari, director of the Centre for Medieval Studies.

"His initial gift – and, even more, his posing of a fundraising challenge to the Bikila Award and the wider Ethiopian community – was transformative. It created a dynamic partnership that brings together the diasporic Ethiopian community with university partners in medieval studies and Near and Middle Eastern civilizations, exploring how we can work together to allow students – both undergraduate and graduate – to delve more deeply into the history of East Africa, and to understand the contributions of the peoples of Ethiopia to the world we inhabit today."

Gervers fell into Ethiopian studies almost by accident.

A graduate of U of T, he has been researching and teaching medieval history and art history at the university for 40 years. It was his fascination with rock-cut architecture that led him to France, Turkey, Italy and eventually Ethiopia for the first time in 1982.

He was hooked.

Since 2000, he’s been leading international expeditions to Ethiopia annually.

Part of the draw for him has been exploring an ancient culture that pretty much remains intact.

“I get off the plane in Ethiopia, and I drive 50 km outside the city and in a way I’m in the Middle Ages,” Gervers said. “Rural life in Ethiopia has remained largely unchanged for thousands of years… It’s almost like looking at the other side of the moon. It’s all there, but very few people are aware of it.”

Modern-day northern Ethiopia and Eritrea were the seat of The Kingdom of Aksum, a major naval and trading power from the first to the seventh centuries AD. One of the world’s first Christian kingdoms, it was a contemporary of Greek and Roman civilizations, controlling many of the trade routes between sub-Saharan Africa and the Mediterranean world. Religious writings from 2000 years ago, long since disappeared from the modern world may still exist in Ethiopia translated centuries ago by monks there, but still undiscovered in old monasteries.

Part of the reason why few researchers delved into Ethiopia is because, unlike much of Africa which faced colonization by Europeans, Ethiopia did not. That meant most scholars were unable to use their native tongues to conduct research and very few, if any, institutions offered Ge’ez.

“Sometimes the only source of this literature from the early period comes to us through Ethiopic text, but it’s a major gap that has not been filled because we don’t teach the language,” Gervers said. “There are tens of thousands of manuscripts in Ethiopia in Ge’ez and no one is reading them.”

In addition to pushing for Ge’ez to be taught at the university level, Gervers has also been working with U of T Scarborough on a library project to make the entire manuscript collection of the 15th century Ethiopian monastery at Gunda Gunde available online, a total of 35,000 pages of Ge’ez text.

Concerned that Ethiopian manuscripts were under threat after the government seized all church lands, Gervers began digitizing them. His online database (login and password: student) of Ethiopian art and culture now contains 65,000 images.

Thanks to a significant grant from the Arcadia Fund, he is also documenting through video interviews with craftsmen, monks and parishioners how Ethiopia’s rock-cut churches (see below), which are carved out of stone – 20 metres² underground, 6 m high – are created. For much of the world, it’s a lost art. So far, he’s gathered 40 hours of video recordings, and now is seeking help from the Ethiopian community to transcribe and translate the video interviews, which will then be made available online.

Gervers said The Weeknd’s gift has helped shine a light on the study of ancient Ethiopian culture. For now, he’s just looking forward to seeing Ge’ez offered at U of T.

“I’m one of the first people who’s going to sign up,” he said.

Contribute to the fundraising campaign here

The Weeknd backs U of T's bid to launch Ethiopian studies

lanthierj — Mon, 08 Aug 2016 20:52:29 +0000

The Weeknd backs U of T's bid to launch Ethiopian studies

lanthierj Mon, 08/08/2016 - 16:52

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The Weeknd performs during the 2016 Hangout Music Festival on May 20, 2016 in Gulf Shores, Alabama (Photo by Taylor Hill/Getty Images for Hangout Music Festival)

Noreen Ahmed-Ullah

Author legacy

Noreen Ahmed-Ullah

Topic

Faculty of Arts & Science

U of T Scarborough

A $50,000 donation from Grammy-award winning star The Weeknd will help the ��Ƶ launch Ethiopian studies.

Starting in spring 2017 with a course in the ancient – and now largely extinct – language of Ge’ez, the department of Near and Middle Eastern civilizations is working to build the foremost curriculum for Ethiopian studies here at the ��Ƶ.

“Ethiopian studies is a great way to enrich our curriculum in African studies because it is one of the great civilizational cultures of Africa and the world,” said Professor Tim Harrison, chair of the department of Near and Middle Eastern civilizations.

As part of that goal to raise endowment funds, Toronto native Abel Tesfaye, a.k.a. The Weeknd, whose parents emigrated from Ethiopia, responded to the call from local Ethiopian leaders to help raise money for the university’s efforts to create Ethiopian studies.

The donation was made as part of Bikila Award’s fundraising initiative at U of T's Varsity stadium: Bikila Barefoot Challenge. On Saturday, The Weeknd announced his support for the effort and linked to further information on the initiative and where to make donations.

Read the Toronto Star story

“He’s our community’s hero,” said Tessema Mulegata, president of the Bikila Award organization.“We’re really surprised. We’re grateful for what he’s done.

“This was a unique opportunity for the community to partner with this prestigious institution, the ��Ƶ, and he responded to our call.”

Harrison says with The Weeknd’s gift, the university will be close to reaching its goal of raising $200,000 in endowment funds to start the curriculum, which will begin with a course in Ge’ez. Like Latin, Ge’ez is used in liturgical services – in this case for the Ethiopian Orthodox and Catholic churches.

Besides being a foundational language for Ethiopian studies, the Ge’ez course, which will be cross-listed with the Centre for Medieval Studies, will allow students in other programs to compare the language with other Semitic languages.

The fundraising began in 2015 with a $50,000 donation from Professor Michael Gervers of U of T's history department, who has taught courses in Ethiopian history at U of T Scarborough.

Gervers said The Weeknd's gift has really helped Ethiopian studies at U of T get closer to reality.

“Practically everyone in the world under the age of 30 knows about The Weeknd,” Gervers said. “That single donation has raised the visibility of the whole project enormously.”

Ethiopia

U of T oral and maxillofacial surgeons save lives while training future doctors in Ethiopia

U of T, Addis Ababa University strengthen partnership, launch new programs in Ethiopia

Read more about the Toronto Addis Ababa Academic Collaboration

U of T launches class on ancient Ethiopic language with a donation from The Weeknd

Read more about the Ge'ez course at CBC News

Hear CBC Metro Morning talk about the course on Ge'ez

Read about The Weeknd’s donation

Read more about Professor Gervers' research on Ethiopia

From swinging ropes to matching funds: Michael Gervers’ passion for Ethiopian studies

The Weeknd backs U of T's bid to launch Ethiopian studies

Read the Toronto Star story

Read more about Gervers