Africa

A global educator who wants to transform leadership in Africa, Patrick Awuah receives U of T honorary degree

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 15:41:45 +0000

A global educator who wants to transform leadership in Africa, Patrick Awuah receives U of T honorary degree Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 06/18/2024 - 11:41

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(photo by Steve Frost)

Scott Anderson

Topic

Our Community

Convocation 2024

Africa

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Global

Honorary Degree

Patrick Awuah was unimpressed by the education system in his home country of Ghana – so he decided to do something about it.

To help bring about an African renaissance facilitated by better guidance in all areas of society, Awuah established a new kind of university – or at least one that was uncommon in much of Africa at the time: a private institution teaching liberal arts, ethics and business and technology skills.

“The question of transformation in Africa really is a question of leadership,” said the founder and president of Ashesi University in Ghana during a 2007 TED Talk.

Today, for his outstanding commitment to global education and deeply rooted desire to do good in the world, Awuah will receive a Doctor of Laws, honoris causa, from the ��Ƶ.

Born in 1965, Awuah grew up in Ghana’s capital Accra. In 1985, he moved to Pennsylvania to attend Swarthmore College (where he was accepted on a full scholarship). He earned bachelor’s degrees in engineering and economics, and after graduation, worked for several years at Microsoft as a software engineer and program manager. There, he met his future wife, Rebecca, a software testing engineer.

The couple had initially planned to stay in the U.S., but parenthood prompted them to reconsider. “I was going through what I call my ‘pre-mid-life crisis,’” Awuah said in his TED Talk. “Africa was a mess. Somalia had disintegrated into anarchy. Rwanda was in the throes of this genocidal war … I couldn’t just stay in Seattle and raise my kids in an upper-middle class neighborhood and feel good about it.”

Awuah had been struck by the quality of the education he received at Swarthmore, and wished more students in Ghana could experience something like it. “It was a breath of fresh air,” he said during his TED Talk. “The faculty there didn’t want us to memorize information… They wanted us to think critically.”

(photo by Steve Frost)

He saw an opportunity to do something good: he would establish an Ivy League-like university back home. In 1997, to advance his dream, he enrolled at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, and the following year travelled to Ghana to do a feasibility study. His MBA thesis became the institution’s business plan.

Situated in a leafy suburb of Accra, Ashesi University opened its doors in 2002 with 30 students. (Its name means “new beginning” in the Fante dialect of the Akan language family.) More than two decades later, it offers four-year bachelor’s programs in business administration, management information systems, computer science and engineering, and boasts more than 1,500 students – slightly more than half of whom attend on a scholarship.

Awuah believes having a diverse mix of students is crucial. “The most important question that we ask our students is what is a good society and how do you organize it?” he told the Swarthmore College Bulletin in 2010. “That conversation is not interesting if you only have students from affluent families in your classroom … We wanted diversity, and we needed to put some financial resources toward achieving that diversity.”

Awuah also believed it was important for Ashesi’s students to gain a foundation in the humanities and social sciences before focusing on their more business-oriented majors. The four-year curriculum emphasizes critical thinking and communication, ethics and integrity. The school also boasts an African Studies program, with offerings in music, archeology and philosophy.

“I am really concerned about the human spirit,” Awuah said in the Bulletin interview. “About character and ethos, about something deeper within people. Those kinds of things really speak to me. That really is the essence of leadership.”

Reflecting on the early days of Ashesi, Awuah said during his TED Talk that there were times when the whole project seemed like Mission: Impossible. But one morning, about a month after the school opened, he received an email from one of the students; it was very brief: “I am thinking now. Thank you.”

“It’s such a simple statement,” recalled Awuah. “But I was moved almost to tears because I understood what was happening to this young man.”

For his commitment to innovation in education and leadership, Awuah has won many international awards, including the MacArthur Fellowship (also known as the “Genius Grant”) and the McNulty Prize (which celebrates leaders who tackle the world’s toughest problems). He is a member of the Order of the Volta – one of Ghana’s highest awards (given to individuals who exemplify the ideal of service to the country) and holds four other honorary doctorates.

U of T prof explores experiences of Canadian-born youth of Somali descent

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 17:09:40 +0000

U of T prof explores experiences of Canadian-born youth of Somali descent

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 03/05/2024 - 12:09

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As part of a two-year research project, Ahmed Ilmi interviewed a group of Canadian-born youth of Somali descent living in Toronto’s Rexdale neighbourhood (photo by Don Campbell)

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Subheadline

"I started looking at questions of being Black, Muslim and African – and being a member of this diaspora within a broader Canadian identity"

Ahmed Ilmi has witnessed firsthand the lack of inclusion and support for Black Muslim youth in the classroom – a topic he’s now exploring as a scholar at the ��Ƶ.

An assistant professor, teaching stream, in the department of global development studies at U of T Scarborough, Ilmi’s work looks at the ways early educational experiences can be linked to social exclusion and identity formation among Black Canadian youth in Greater Toronto.

For two years he conducted interviews with Canadian-born youth of Somali descent living in the Toronto neighbourhood of Rexdale, which is home to a large and vibrant Somali diaspora community. Ilmi says the interviews he conducted highlight the anti-Black racism and Islamophobia experienced in the community – and reveals how this group has built their own unique identity that differs from previous generations.

He adds that the neighbourhood’s youth have coined the unique term Say-Walahi, a fusion of English and Somali that loosely translates to “swear to God” – a term that hints at multiple identities as Canadian and Muslim of Somali descent.

Writer Jasmine Mahoro spoke to Ilmi about the project and what educators can do to better support Black youth.

What inspired you to take on this project?

My goal is to study how colonial education manifests itself within the classroom, in community settings and across society. I look at marginalized Black students and the influences on Black boys, especially, in the classroom. For my current work, there is a known concentration of Black Muslim youth of Somali descent in Rexdale and the community has had low education outcomes due to systemic challenges with white, Eurocentric education.

I was also thinking about who I am – in terms of belonging, exile, diaspora and identity. I came across this unique cultural location that is very fluid and dynamic, referred to as Say-Walahi. I started looking at questions of being Black, Muslim and African – and being a member of this diaspora within a broader Canadian identity.

What did you learn about the experiences of this community?

These youth are not sitting idly and waiting for their lives to pass them by. They are incredibly brilliant. They are resisting both racism and Islamophobia by building community and proudly expressing their identity. For example, it’s common to see them use Say-Walahi memes on social media, so they are proudly owning this.

My generation and previous generations didn’t share a similar experience. It's something very profound. This is where I argue this youth group is very creative. Not only did they navigate the multiple identities that they have in the world, but they were able to connect the dots to create a new way of speaking, articulating and being that is uniquely theirs.

What were your early experiences with education like in Canada?

We don’t push Black students to achieve their full potential through education. For me, I was lucky enough to have some educators and professors that would eventually inspire me. Early on, so many told me “No” – that it wasn’t going to happen. All it took was that one “Yes” for me to move forward and keep going. Unfortunately, being the only Somali-Canadian in the classroom is something that I had to live with for most of my academic career.

How can educators and the school system better understand and address the complex challenges faced by Black Muslim youth?

Although the youth I interviewed were all born here in Ontario, their identities are seen as foreign. It's not even a question of where you were born or where are you from, it's that their identities are not seen as Canadian.

At the moment, the school system we have is molded around a particular kind of identity that is white and European. When you don't fit into that mold, it's as if your identity is an afterthought. That doesn't give you much inspiration to become productive members of society. There are also low expectations of Black students. If the beginning of the conversation comes from a place of Black brilliance, then we can think about creating and constructing classroom spaces that foster Black excellence.

What impact do you hope your current research will have?

I hope this will inspire people to think about their own identity. I want educators to think about how they can reach and inspire these youth and believe in their potential.

There are also policy implications, such as creating more inclusive classrooms built around a multiplicity of identities. It also goes beyond how we fit in the overall Black Muslim African experience that is expressed only during specific times such as Black History Month. It includes looking at ways to validate and uplift these voices consistently and how we can work with that knowledge to transform society.

Elite Africa Project shines light on the creativity, expertise and power that thrives on the continent

Christopher.Sorensen — Fri, 23 Feb 2024 19:50:09 +0000

Elite Africa Project shines light on the creativity, expertise and power that thrives on the continent

Christopher.Sorensen Fri, 02/23/2024 - 14:50

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Students on the upper gallery of the Alioune Diop University Lecture Building in Bambey, Senegal (photo by Chérif Tall/Aga Khan Trust for Culture)

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Faculty of Arts & Science

Subheadline

An international group of African studies scholars has launched the Elite Africa Project, which seeks to redefine the notion of power in Africa and shift public perceptions about the continent’s most prominent and prosperous people.

A global hub of information for scholars, activists, journalists and practitioners, the initiative aims to foster deeper engagement with the expanse of creativity, expertise and power that thrives in Africa today while challenging negative portrayals of the region.

“We’re in a moment where Africans are playing a leading role in almost every field of human endeavor you can imagine,” says Antoinette Handley, a professor in the ��Ƶ’s department of political science in the Faculty of Arts & Science who is the project’s principal investigator.

“For example, several of the world’s top prizes for literature have gone to a range of African authors in recent years, the 2022 Pritzker Architecture Prize was awarded to a native of Burkina Faso – the first African and first Black architect to receive the honour — the World Health Organization is currently headed by an Ethiopian public health researcher and the World Trade Organization is headed up by the former finance minister of Nigeria.”

In addition to Handley and fellow U of T scholars Dickson Eyoh, Sean Hawkins and Nakanyike B. Musisi, the project is led by Gerald Bareebe of York University, Peter Lewis of Johns Hopkins University, Landry Signé of Arizona State University and the Brookings Institution and Thomas Kwasi Tieku of King’s University College at Western University.

Despite the many achievements emerging from across the world’s second-most populous continent, the researchers say most popular and academic treatments of Africa tend to feature people commonly regarded as weak and poor or villainous and despotic.

Calling for a reassessment of former approaches, the scholars’ aims are to:

Challenge the narrow and sometimes racist popular understanding that the continent is composed largely of poor or disempowered populations and a class of individuals who are either corrupt, self-serving or puppets of international forces.
Map the dynamics of elite formation in Africa.
Present power as more multidimensional: comprising “soft” forms of power such as knowledge, skills and creativity, as much as it also comprises the more commonly considered “hard” forms of power, such as coercion or material resources.

“Ultimately, our goal with the Elite Africa Project – aptly named to refer to the people who are unusually influential in agenda-setting and decision-making – is to challenge academic and public perceptions of influential Africans as grasping and self-interested, a framing that perpetuates negative depictions of the continent and its peoples and draws on a simplistic understanding of power and how it is wielded,” Handley said.

“Our focus is on the burgeoning ranks of globally renowned artists, prominent intellectuals, innovative businesspeople, accomplished scientists and many others who are flourishing and, in the process, transform both Africa and the global fields within which they work.”

Clockwise from top left: Antoinette Handley, Dickson Eyoh, Sean Hawkins, Nakanyike Musisi, Thomas Kwasi Tieku, Landry Signé, Peter Lewis and Gerald Bareebe (photos courtesy of Elite Africa Project)

The project’s central feature is a database curated primarily for scholars and students of African studies that’s designed to be an entry point into more research about – and a better understanding of – elites and elite accomplishments across the continent.

“With the help of our team from across the globe, we're building an essential hub of information for scholars, activists, journalists and practitioners – anyone intrigued by Africa's vibrant domains ranging from politics and economics to religion and the arts, and everything in between,” said Eyoh, an associate professor in U of T’s department of political science in the Faculty of Arts & Science and the African Studies Centre at New College.

The database contains key academic works, a curated assortment of relevant podcasts and videos, and a collection of biographies of personalities and organizations.

“Whether someone is looking for information about highly regarded African photographers or fashion designers, or some background on the political history of any one African nation, or the roles of religious leaders across many African societies, our hope is that the database can serve as a starting point or a source of supplementary information in the course of their investigation,” Handley said. “It could also be used as a teaching tool for students at any level.”

Another key feature of the project’s website is a weekly roundup of news articles offering insights into a wide variety of people, places and proceedings making headlines both domestically and internationally.

“We're very conscious about presenting items that are not just limited to politics or big economic stories, but represent accomplishments by leading Africans in every imaginable sphere of human activity,” said Handley.

“There’s a huge amount of news stories and data about Africa out there – we’re trying to present a shorthand, easy overview that provides a more well-rounded picture. It lands in your Instagram feed once a week and you can keep track broadly of what’s happening on the continent.”

Handley says her hope for the project is “to go beyond negative stereotypes and ensure a broader, balanced, perhaps more positive view of all that Africa has to offer.”

U of T partners with leading African universities and Mastercard Foundation to advance health care in Africa

bresgead — Tue, 16 Jan 2024 18:44:25 +0000

U of T partners with leading African universities and Mastercard Foundation to advance health care in Africa

bresgead Tue, 01/16/2024 - 13:44

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The Africa Higher Education Health Collaborative Executive Steering Committee, including U of T’s Joseph Wong and Wisdom Tettey, fourth and third from right, met in Cape Town, South Africa in October 2023 (photo courtesy of Africa Higher Education Health Collaborative)

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The ��Ƶ, the Mastercard Foundation and a network of leading African universities are embarking on a 10-year initiative to enhance primary health care workforce education, entrepreneurship and innovation across Africa.

The partnership, known as the Africa Higher Education Health Collaborative (AHEHC), was launched in 2022 and aims to bolster the continent’s health sectors as part of efforts to improve care for millions while supporting youth employment and economic growth. Participating institutions from Africa include Addis Ababa University, the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, African Leadership University, Amref International University, Ashesi University, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Moi University and the University of Cape Town.

The AHEHC partners are committed to reshaping the health-care landscape in Africa by preparing young people for meaningful work in health and wellness through contextually appropriate and sustainable primary health care.

According to a 2022 survey of 47 countries in Africa, there’s an average of only 1.55 doctors, nurses, and midwives per 1,000 people, significantly below the WHO’s recommended ratio.

AHEHC was a key topic at a 2023 meeting in Cape Town, South Africa that focused on a collective goal of enhancing the health sector to benefit African societies. The gathering included several U of T leaders: Joseph Wong, vice-president, international; Trevor Young, dean of the Temerty Faculty of Medicine who is now vice-president and provost; and Wisdom Tettey, vice-president and principal of U of T Scarborough. Representatives from all partnering institutions also participated.

“The Africa Higher Education Health Collaborative is part of a larger movement – driven by Africans for Africans – aimed at enhancing the continent's economic vitality, improving access to health care and generating fulfilling employment in the health sector,” Wong said.

"The members of this collaborative are working hand-in-hand to advance local priorities and leverage our collective resources to create a healthier, more sustainable future, with each partner contributing to and learning from the others.”

Wong added that AHEHC’s work is guided by the idea of co-creation – an approach that was evident at the October 2023 convening as the partners cemented the mutual relationships, laying the foundation for the widespread adoption of African-led solutions across the network.

U of T’s participation in the AHEHC aligns with the university’s broader Africa strategy, which encompasses various initiatives from entrepreneurship exchanges to high-level summits involving representatives from universities, governments and various international development groups. It is guided by the President’s International Council on Engagement with Africa and is outlined in the university’s International Strategic Plan 2022-2027, focused on global reach, global learning and global impact.

"We aim to tap into the tremendous young talent and vast opportunities across the continent while addressing challenges facing Africa’s primary healthcare systems, including severe worker shortages,” said Penina Lam, U of T’s senior director of international relations, who is leading AHEHC’s implementation.

AHEHC’s initial focus will be in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda and South Africa, aiming to strengthen health sectors. Through hands-on training in various disciplines, AHEHC seeks to prepare the next generation of health-care practitioners. The approach aims to enhance the delivery of high-quality primary care, stimulate economic growth and develop robust societies. This aligns with the Mastercard Foundation’s Health Strategy, which seeks to create three million dignified and fulfilling jobs in primary care, with an emphasis on employment opportunities for women and young people.

The 2023 Monitoring, Evaluation, Learning, & Adaptation (MELA) co-creation workshop was held in Cape Town, South Africa in October 2023 (photo courtesy of Africa Higher Education Health Collaborative)

As the secretariat for the initiative, U of T plays a supportive role in co-ordinating collaborations and programs tailored to each partner’s local health priorities, needs, assets and expertise. This involves facilitating learning, development and implementation across the network, managed by a team in Canada and through three regional hubs in Africa.

For example, the Temerty Faculty of Medicine’s department of family and community medicine partnered with the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology. Together, they co-delivered continuing education courses for primary care workers in critical areas such as palliative care. About 100 Ghanaian primary care professionals participated in the courses this fall.

This program is among many guided by AHEHC’s three pillars: health employment, focusing on workforce development; health entrepreneurship, which supports the creation of businesses that will produce health innovations and self-employment opportunities; and health ecosystems, which engages partners in government, corporations, non-profits and other institutions in the collective effort to transform the health sector.

AHEHC will also build on the success of the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program, ushering in a new cohort of graduate students from countries in Sub-Saharan Africa to pursue their studies at U of T over ten years.

AHEHC leverages U of T’s longstanding, mutually beneficial relationships with institutions in Africa, such as the Toronto Addis Ababa Academic Collaboration, which brings together U of T faculty members with colleagues at Addis Ababa University to co-develop graduate programs and train professionals, many of whom remain in Ethiopia to contribute to various sectors.

Wong said the initiative is an important one for the university.

“This collaborative aligns with our institutional mission to foster an academic community in which the learning and scholarship of everyone flourishes,” he said. “We are committed to the principles of equal opportunity, equity and justice – not just here in Canada but globally.”

After a harrowing escape from Sudan, U of T scholar Nisrin Elamin calls on the world to pay attention

siddiq22 — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 18:07:17 +0000

After a harrowing escape from Sudan, U of T scholar Nisrin Elamin calls on the world to pay attention

siddiq22 Wed, 06/14/2023 - 14:07

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Nisrin Elamin, an assistant professor of archeology and African Studies in U of T's Faculty of Arts & Science, recently fled Sudan, which is in the midst of an armed conflict between rival factions of the military government (photo courtesy of Nisrin Elamin)

Topic

Faculty of Arts & Science

Global

International

New College

Subheadline

Elamin, an assistant professor of archeology and African Studies, says more needs to be done to support the country's pro-democracy movement

Why aren’t there more eyes on Sudan – the site of a humanitarian crisis which has seen more than one million people driven from their homes in the space of two months, with many others killed or injured?

Nisrin Elamin asks herself that question every day. The assistant professor in the department of anthropology and the African Studies program in the Faculty of Arts & Science recently escaped from Sudan, where she had been visiting family.

After a dangerous, difficult journey from the capital city of Khartoum to Port Sudan on the Red Sea, Elamin was evacuated at the end of April, along with her parents and three-year-old daughter.

Now, she thinks about her many close relatives who remain sheltering in place in and around Khartoum – and about the millions of other Sudanese people still living there and in other parts of the country in desperate conditions.

Entire villages have been burned to the ground, with many citizens deprived of access to food, water, medicine and fuel during the ongoing conflict between rival factions of the military government.

“It’s a terrible situation,” Elamin says. “And the international humanitarian response has been ‘too little, too late’ in the sense that when we evacuated, the aid community evacuated with us.”

During a temporary ceasefire, several international aid organizations have been able to resume assistance to Sudan. But aid agency operations often report obstructions, and Elamin says the Sudanese people themselves have sometimes proven most effective at helping their fellow citizens.

“People have been relying on resistance committees and civilian volunteer networks,” she says.

“These are grassroots democratic forces that have been the backbone of Sudan’s popular uprising against the current regime since 2018. They’ve been the ones distributing food and water – and they have actually been arrested for doing this work.”

Women carrying belongings walk down a street in Omdurman, Sudan, the twin city of the country's capital, Khartoum (photo by AFP via Getty Images)

Since Sudan gained independence from colonial rule in 1956, the country has spent the majority of those years riven by internal conflict. In 2021, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of Sudan’s army, and Lt. General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (known as Hemedti), paramilitary chief of the Rapid Support Forces, collaborated to topple the regime of Omar al-Bashir – a leader who had been indicted by the International Criminal Court in 2009 for directing a campaign of mass killing in the Darfur region and was subsequently imprisoned on corruption charges.

Yet the generals are themselves steadfast enemies of democracy – together, they have been responsible for human rights violations, including al-Burhan’s direction of the Khartoum Massacre of 2019 and Hemedti’s brutal leadership of the Janjaweed militia in Darfur beginning in 2003. And now they are at war with each other.

“The Rapid Support Forces were supposed to be integrated into the armed forces based on a political agreement that would eventually lead to democratic elections,” Elamin says.

“But these two generals, who are known war criminals, are now struggling for political and economic control. And everybody else is in the middle of this.”

Even prior to the fighting that gave rise to this catastrophe, Sudan – Africa's third-largest country – was dealing with a refugee crisis and severe food insecurity. The United Nations estimates that 25 million people in the country currently need aid and protection.

Elamin is an American citizen who recently completed her first year as a scholar at U of T. She is currently writing a book based on 15 months of fieldwork in Sudan, and her recent trip there was taken with the intention of conducting follow-up research while also introducing her young daughter to her Sudanese family.

“My work focuses on large-scale land investments – what many call ‘land grabs’ in central Sudan, where I’m originally from,” she says.

“I’ve been tracing the impacts of Gulf Arab corporate and domestic investments on local communities and researching the various forms of resistance to these investments. Just to give you an idea, the Saudis and Emiratis have invested about $27 billion in real estate infrastructure over the last two decades – all while the country was governed by a brutal military regime.

“Such investments have also impacted local food sovereignty – these shifts in land ownership undermine people’s access to subsistence food, and they’re relying on imports now more than ever.”

Elamin notes that despite the various crises affecting them, the people of Sudan remain unbowed. Soon after the shelling and explosions began, “only 16 per cent of hospitals in Khartoum were operating at capacity. The Sudanese Doctors’ Union has set up field hospitals on the outskirts of the city to treat the injured, deliver babies and do whatever is needed, though even getting there is dangerous.”

Since her return from Sudan, Elamin has been tireless in her efforts to inform the public about what is happening in her family’s homeland, appearing on international radio and television programs. She points out that while the news cycle invariably moves on, Sudan’s problems do not.

Still, Elamin affirms that much is being done.

“For example, the Sudanese Students Union at U of T recently held an event to inform the community about what’s happening. It was also a fundraiser for the Sudanese Doctors’ Union – that’s an important initiative to support, because money goes directly to the support the lifesaving work doctors are doing there.”

Elamin also calls on governments around the world to lend help where they can. Much more assistance is needed at the borders of the seven countries bordering Sudan, which are all processing refugees at a painfully slow rate in the punishing desert climate.

She notes Canada could provide expedited travel visas, such as those offered to refugees from Ukraine.

“But probably the most important thing is for Canadians to assist the international community – specifically efforts on the African continent led by regional actors such as the African Union and the Intergovernmental Authority for Development – with their effort to broker a sustainable peace," Elamin says.

"This requires, in my view, putting these two generals on trial instead of putting them at the negotiating table – and really starting a transitional kind of process: one that centres the pro-democracy forces that have been sidelined.”

‘Areas of mutual interest’: U of T looks at ways to further deepen its ties with African universities and partners

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 30 May 2023 14:29:01 +0000

‘Areas of mutual interest’: U of T looks at ways to further deepen its ties with African universities and partners

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 05/30/2023 - 10:29

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A nine-member delegation from U of T recently visited higher education institutions in South Africa, Botswana and Ghana. The trip focused on ways U of T can partner with universities and organizations across the continent (submitted photo)

Topic

On a recent visit to Ghana, ��Ƶ Scarborough alumnus Efosa Obano met with a small group of young African entrepreneurs – a meeting he later described as a highlight of his trip.

The entrepreneurs – three Ashesi University students representing three separate startups – are all connected to Obano through the African Impact Challenge, a pitch and incubation program he helped launch with fellow African U of T students in 2020.

“These startups are all doing amazing work,” says Obano, who was joined at the meeting by Dave Fenton, assistant director of external relations in the department of management at U of T Scarborough.

“It’s been incredible seeing these companies grow from incubation right to the point where they are making a significant impact in their communities.”

Efosa Obano (left) and Dave Fenton (right) meet with Ashesi University alumna Maame Poku, who co-founded Emergency Response Africa with the help of the African Impact Initiative (submitted photo)

Obano and Fenton were part of a nine-member delegation from U of T that recently visited various higher education institutions in South Africa, Botswana and Ghana. The trip focused on ways U of T can partner with universities and organizations across the continent on three main areas of interest: student and faculty mobility; research collaborations; and entrepreneurship.

Professor Wisdom Tettey, U of T vice-president and principal of U of T Scarborough, says many of the topics were first discussed last summer when various diplomats, scholars and African academic leaders visited U of T. The trip offered a chance to follow up on many of those topics with concrete actions, while also exploring new areas for further collaboration.

“Our primary goal was to strengthen and expand our existing relationships, but also cultivate new ones in areas of mutual interest,” Tettey says.

“We’re approaching our relationship with African universities through a lens of true partnership – one driven by co-creation and co-learning. There are so many opportunities for U of T students and faculty to collaborate with peers in Africa through student exchanges, collaborative research projects as well as courses and conferences, just to name a few.”

Tettey points to work being done by African researchers on climate change, energy and trans-border issues surrounding water management – similar to what is playing out between Canada and the United States – as a prime example for potential research collaborations.

Alexie Tcheuyap, associate vice-president and vice-provost, international student experience, says another avenue for collaboration is through U of T’s Global Classrooms Initiative, which allows faculty to work closely with peers abroad and connect classrooms in different parts of the world for co-teaching using online tools.

“With their institutional and infrastructural resources, South Africa, Botswana and Ghana offer exceptional and unique opportunities for students and faculty mobility in a changing global world,” Tcheuyap says.

Bill Gough, U of T Scarborough’s vice-principal academic and dean, who was also part of the delegation, adds there is potential for greater opportunities for experiential learning in international development and co-op placements for U of T students, too.

The 19-day trip, which wrapped up in April, included meetings with delegates from the University of Cape Town, the University of Western Cape, the University of Botswana, Ashesi University, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, the Association of African Universities (AAU) and the African Research Universities Alliance, among others.

U of T’s Office of the Vice-President, International has a team working in Ghana, Kenya and South Africa to facilitate diverse collaborative initiatives between the university and its African partners, notes Penina Lam, U of T’s director of international relations, Africa.

Professor Wisdom Tettey shakes hands with Professor David Norris, vice chancellor, University of Botswana after signing an MOU (photo by Setshwano Moaisi, University of Botswana)

Carlos Vargas, U of T Scarborough’s director of international and global engagement, says an important highlight of the trip was a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed between the University of Botswana and U of T Scarborough. Another was an MOU that U of T signed with the AAU, an organization that advocates for African higher education with more than 400 member institutions. 

Both of these agreements will help guide future collaborations in a range of areas including joint research collaborations, undergraduate and graduate student exchanges and internships, entrepreneurship-based training, joint conferences, seminars and graduate student training, adds Irena Creed, U of T Scarborough’s vice-principal, research and innovation.

Obano, a Nigerian-born U of T Scarborough business grad, says he learned a lot through the first-hand conversations he had with academic leaders about the strategies of African universities when it comes to the role of entrepreneurship in economic development. He says many of those conversations focused on the incubator model used by U of T’s top-ranked entrepreneurship ecosystem.

He says he’s also mindful of the importance of promoting “brain circulation” as a core philosophy in partnering with African universities.

“Our motivation isn’t a brain drain – we don’t want to pluck talented entrepreneurs away from Africa and bring them to U of T or Canada,” says Obano, who is also manager of U of T’s Black Founders Network.

“There are things that are working well here and there are things that are working well in Africa. Our goal is brain circulation – we want to leverage the best of both and learn from one another.”

Nursing Week: Women's health advocate Sheila Tlou on breaking barriers in the fight for global health equity

siddiq22 — Mon, 08 May 2023 14:15:02 +0000

Nursing Week: Women's health advocate Sheila Tlou on breaking barriers in the fight for global health equity

siddiq22 Mon, 05/08/2023 - 10:15

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Sheila Tlou, Botswana's former minister of health, will give a keynote address on May 9 as part of National Nursing Week at the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing (supplied image)

Topic

Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing

Nursing

United Nations

Women's Health

World Health Organization

The ��Ƶ's Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing will mark National Nursing Week with a keynote address by Sheila Tlou, Botswana's former minister of health.

Over the past few decades, Tlou – a professor, nurse, HIV prevention advocate and artist – has merged her talents as a leader in health policy and community theatre to bring about lasting change in health outcomes in eastern and southern Africa.

“Nurses are a formidable and passionate force, and I say to all the young nurses out there, 'We can make an impact anywhere and everywhere we go,'” Tlou says.

Tlou will speak on May 9 at Innis College, sharing stories of her own experience as a changemaker in global health through her work with the World Health Organization (WHO), UNAIDS and the International Council of Nurses (ICN), where she has tackled issues around HIV transmission and prevention – particularly in women and children.

Of her many accomplishments, which have included being a member of parliament for the Republic of Botswana and director of a WHO nursing and midwifery initiative for anglophone Africa, Tlou says that she is most proud of her work saving the lives of children and their mothers by significantly lowering rates of HIV transmission in communities in Botswana.

When Tlou first became Botwana's minister of health in 2004, the rate of mother-to-child HIV transmission was very high. To address this urgent issue, Tlou created a comprehensive HIV/AIDS prevention strategy that included engaging with community members and leaders prior to rolling out an education and awareness campaign focused on HIV testing for pregnant women, as well as treatment with antiretrovirals.

By speaking with women and those supporting them in child-rearing – including partners and mothers-in-law – Tlou and her team of nurses, nurse practitioners and midwives were able to change the stigma around HIV and encourage early testing, shifting the community’s perspective and focus onto efforts that helped women birth healthy babies.

This community-engaged approach successfully reduced the rate of mother-to-child transmission of the disease from 30 per cent in 2003 to 8 per cent in 2008.

“This success was really saying to the world, 'Look at what can be achieved in a resource-limited area through the intervention of nurses,'” Tlou says. “Now the rate of transmission is less than 1 per cent, and the stigma is so low that many women continue to get tested. However the rates of infection of HIV among women remain very high, and that is still something that needs to be addressed.”

Tlou's advocacy has always been centered around issues of gender and empowering women to improve their health through education. Before she became a nurse, Tlou was passionate about theatre, originally planning to become an actor or interpreter for the United Nations because of her love of languages.

However, with only health sciences scholarships available to her as a young university student, Tlou entered the nursing program at Dillard University in New Orleans, opting to take public health and theatre as electives to foster her knack for engaging with people.

After completing her master’s degree in nursing education and instruction from Columbia University in New York City, Tlou returned to Botswana to teach community-health nursing and also co-directed a travelling theatre group that performed plays – some which imparted health-focused messages about family planning and spacing out pregnancies.

“Being able to take this practical public-health message out into the communities and villages was uplifting for the nursing students involved, because they could see the impact of community engagement from a nursing perspective,” Tlou says.

Though now retired, Tlou – who taught at the University of Botswana for decades – continues to work as a consultant on health promotion strategy for organizations such as the African Union, the United Nations and the WHO on efforts to reduce deaths from malaria, in addition to her work on HIV/AIDS.

During Nursing Week and beyond, Tlou wants nurses around the world to remember the importance not just of bedside care, but of community impact – and the ability of nurses to break down barriers that contribute to inequity in health care.

“My advice to current and future nurses is to look at the UN Sustainable Development Goals in your region, meet with nursing associations and find your niche,” Tlou says.

“As nurses, we need to make ourselves visible – and that includes in how we mentor the next generation."

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U of T grad’s startup tackles energy crisis in Nigeria: CNN

siddiq22 — Tue, 04 Apr 2023 17:32:06 +0000

U of T grad’s startup tackles energy crisis in Nigeria: CNN

siddiq22 Tue, 04/04/2023 - 13:32

Cutline

(photo by Phill Snel)

Topic

Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering

Global

Startup

Sustainability

Millions of people in Nigeria live without access to electricity – but ��Ƶ alumnus Olugbenga Olubanjo is aiming to change that with his startup Reeddi, which rents out small, lightweight solar-powered batteries that can power devices such as TVs, laptops and refrigerators, CNN reports.

Olubanjo, who grew up in Nigeria, told the U.S. news outlet that he developed the idea for the company during his time in U of T’s Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering. When he phoned up family and friends back home, he said their calls would often be disrupted by power outages. “I felt obliged to do something,” he said.

In 2021, Reeddi was one of the 15 finalists for the inaugural Earthshot Prize launched by Prince William.

Reeddi’s capsule batteries are currently only available in Nigeria, where Olubanjo says he hopes to optimize Reeddi’s model before expanding to other countries in Africa.

Read the story at CNN

In a bid to promote global ‘brain circulation,’ U of T expands partnerships with African universities

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 08 Feb 2023 14:09:17 +0000

In a bid to promote global ‘brain circulation,’ U of T expands partnerships with African universities

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 02/08/2023 - 09:09

Cutline

Diplomats and scholars from Africa met with ��Ƶ colleagues during a 2022 summit – part of a shared effort to expand and deepen mutually beneficial ties between U of T and institutions across the continent (photo by Ruilin Yuan)

Topic

Dalla Lana School of Public Health

Global

Joseph Wong

U of T Scarborough

From ChuChu sanitary pads in Ghana to on-demand digital mental health care in Kenya, more than a dozen young entrepreneurs from across Africa recently took part in a virtual “pitch day” to make their cases for a wide range of health innovations.

The 16 teams (80 per cent of which have female founders) that participated in the Health Innovation Challenge event – organized by the African Impact Initiative, which counts the ��Ƶ as a key partner – will later spend three months in Toronto to expand their entrepreneurship networks.

Tolu Faromika

“Our goal is to help African students to develop their countries,” says recent U of T Scarborough grad Tolu Faromika, who was born in Nigeria and helped organize the pitch day in early December. “We provide various kinds of training, mentorship and tech support that they can use long after we’re out of the picture and we customize that to each African country.

“But it doesn’t only work one way. I’ve learned so much from this experience. It’s helped me to learn how to generate practical ideas – ideas that will make a real difference back home and here in Canada.

“Being able to see the outcome of those ideas has been amazing.”

It’s just one of many examples of how U of T is deepening its longstanding, mutually beneficial relationship with countries in Africa – part of a carefully co-ordinated program that is informed by consultation with such groups as the President’s International Council on Engagement with Africa.

“The council is composed of people who understand the continent,” says council chair Wisdom Tettey, U of T vice-president and principal of U of T Scarborough. “Africa is a continent of 54 countries, so for U of T to make a meaningful contribution, we need to have a detailed understanding of its diversity, nuances and how best to effectively engage.”

In June 2022, the university hosted a two-day summit that brought together representatives from organizations engaged in initiatives in Africa to discuss ideas for partnerships that address some of the most important issues facing Africa and Canada. Participants included scholars from U of T, Academics Without Borders, Mitacs, and the Mastercard Foundation, as well as representatives from African Development Bank Group, Association of African Universities, African Research Universities Alliance, various African universities, African diplomats from Canada and the United States, and representatives from Global Affairs Canada.

Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia and U of T share a longstanding partnership (photo by Giorgio Cosulich/Getty Images)

U of T’s connections with the world’s second-largest continent go back decades.

In 2013, U of T became one of the first universities in the world to partner with the Mastercard Foundation’s Scholar Program, which has funded students from across Africa to study at U of T. A decade before that, U of T and Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia forged a relationship to address a serious health-care crisis: the population of Ethiopia was about 72 million, but there were only eight psychiatrists in the entire country.

Dr. Dawit Wondimagegn, then a young psychiatry resident at Addis Ababa University, says U of T’s department of psychiatry answered a call that the AAU put out around the world to help create Ethiopia’s first residency training program in psychiatry. From there, U of T and Addis Ababa University formed the Toronto Addis Ababa Academic Collaboration (TAAAC).

TAAAC has since expanded well beyond psychiatry. There are now 29 U of T departments and divisions contributing from six faculties – Faculty of Dentistry, Faculty of Law, Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, Faculty of Information, Temerty Faculty of Medicine and Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work.

The collaboration sends faculty members from U of T and partner hospitals to Addis Ababa University for a month as part of teaching teams that co-develop graduate programs under the leadership and guidance of faculty. Once trained, graduates from the collaboration are hired to expand faculties at universities throughout Ethiopia.

The results of the partnership, Wondimagegn says, have been remarkable.

“Where we once had nothing, we now have thriving programs in areas like family and emergency medicine,” says Wondimagegn, who is co-director of TAAAC. “We’ve slowed the brain drain. We used to send people abroad for training and they wouldn’t return. Now, our people can receive their education and training in Ethiopia and then find work here. There is no need to leave.”

Professor Ernest Aryeetey, secretary general of the Africa Research Universities Alliance, looks on as Professor Joseph Wong, U of T’s vice-president, international, addresses attendees at a summit held at U of T in 2022 (photo by Ruilin Yuan)

As TAAAC has grown, so has the range of partnerships between U of T and African institutions, including a recently launched collaborative network with eight leading African universities called the African Higher Education Health Collaborative. The initiative has a similar goal to TAAAC – create programs to prepare young professionals for work in, and contribute to, the continent’s health sector development – and integrates a substantive partnership between U of T’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health and the School of Public Health at Moi University in Kenya.

U of T President Meric Gertler, left, shares a table with Wisdom Tettey, vice-president and principal of U of T Scarborough, at the 2022 summit (photo by Ruilin Yuan)

U of T’s ongoing efforts to partner with African institutions are part of a larger partnership program the university plans to pursue through its recently published International Strategic Plan 2022-2027, which encompasses 10 objectives across three broad themes: Global Learning, Global Reach and Global Impact.

“There are many benefits to these international partnerships, but it all comes down to U of T engaging with the world,” says Joseph Wong, U of T’s vice-president, international and a professor of political science in the Faculty of Arts & Science and the Roz and Ralph Halbert Professor of Innovation at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy.

“The key is building relationships that are reciprocal. Each partner contributes to the partnership and each learns from the other.”

That’s certainly how Faromika sees it.

Faromika and her family immigrated to Prince Edward Island from Nigeria in 2011. She began her undergraduate studies at U of T in psychology in 2018 and is now a research assistant and Mitacs Accelerate Fellow in the lab of Brian Levine, a U of T professor of psychology and senior scientist at Baycrest’s Rotman Research Institute. She has been involved with the African Impact Initiative throughout most of her U of T journey – and says it’s contributed immeasurably to her education.

“I used to just read articles about the issues facing Nigeria, but my work through the African Impact Initiative is more tangible,” she says. “I’m interacting with people who have their feet on the ground. It’s really enabled me to learn a lot about planning and co-ordinating these activities in African countries.”

Erica Di Ruggiero

Erica Di Ruggiero has seen this same reciprocal benefit in the partnership between U of T’s Dalla Lana School of Public Health and Moi University in Kenya.

An associate professor and director of the school’s Centre for Global Health, Di Ruggiero says U of T’s partnership with Moi began through the late Paula Braitstein, a professor of epidemiology who moved to Kenya to live and work in 2007.

“Paula really got things going in terms of establishing a reciprocal relationship with Moi University where we would learn from each other’s experiences,” she says, adding that the goal is “to de-colonize what we mean by global health research and practice.”

As an example, Di Ruggiero points to the two institutions’ work on advancing knowledge about universal health care, a shared desire of both Canada and Kenya, through a framework that dispels the notion that equitable solutions come only from high-income countries.

“That discourse promotes a wrong idea – that Canada can’t learn from a country like Kenya because we are high income and they are more middle income,” she says, noting that the two sides engage in discussion and sharing of experiences and co-production of knowledge that enable them to learn from each other.

Tettey, who is from Ghana, similarly emphasizes the two-way nature of U of T’s partnerships.

“This is about being able to work together to create a world community,” he says. “It's important for people to understand that Canada has been a happy beneficiary of a lot of African talent. We have created a brain drain on the continent. These partnerships enable us to create brain circulation – Africa can learn from Canada, and we can learn from Africa.

“There’s a reason why the world’s gravity is toward Africa now,” he adds. “There is a lot of potential that is untapped. The youth in Africa are going to be huge players. If we can collaborate in a way that allows our students here to network with potential leaders in Africa, that will enrich all of us.”

Non-profit brings clean drinking water to communities in Sudan

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 14 Sep 2022 01:04:44 +0000

Non-profit brings clean drinking water to communities in Sudan

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 09/13/2022 - 21:04

Cutline

The Wishing Well Company, launched by U of T Scarborough alumnus, is a non-profit that hires locals to build wells in Sudan (photo courtesy of The Wishing Well Company)

Topic

Kabier Izzeldin wasn’t surprised when a child asked for his half-empty water bottle in Sudan. What he didn't expect: the child immediately shared the water with other children.

“That was the moment I realized there's issues that we don't really take in until we pay attention to them,” says Izzeldin, a ��Ƶ Scarborough alumnus who is from Sudan. “And I started thinking about how I could be part of a solution.”

Izzeldin began asking locals what they wish for – most said clean drinking water, which almost 60 per cent of the population in Sudan cannot access. So, in 2020, Izzeldin established a federally incorporated non-profit that has now built wells in 12 rural communities in Darfur, a region in west Sudan. Dubbed The Wishing Well Company, the non-profit offers a way to use a well to fulfill someone else’s wish.

Izzeldin began and has run his non-profit on his own, though he consults with communities to choose locations for wells and exclusively hires locals to build them.

“Unemployment in the region is a very big issue,” says Izzeldin, a former amateur basketball player who graduated from U of T Scarborough in 2021 with a bachelor of science degree. “I could have turned to companies, but there's also very competent individuals that specialize in water facilitation and provision in the region. They have the skills required and just aren’t hired.”

In addition to taking direct donations, the non-profit has a crowdfunding platform built into its website. Anyone can start their own fundraising campaign and receive a custom marketing package for social media, along with photo and video updates on the well’s construction. They then get a certificate and photo of the sign posted in front of their well, which fundraisers can name after a person of their choice.

“What’s really cool to me is that all the wells built so far were built under the names of individuals who passed away. It’s a way for families to keep the impact of their loved ones going," said Izzeldin.

The Wishing Well Company installs hand-pump water wells that can last decades with proper maintenance (photo courtesy of The Wishing Well Company)

Because the water crisis is partly caused by climate change, Izzeldin also wanted to offer something to reduce reliance on non-reusable plastic. So, the company sells branded water bottles with a specialized lid for holding liquid flavouring; users can control whether they want to drink plain or flavoured water by switching a dial.

The more Izzeldin researched water insecurity, the more he learned about its pervasive impacts. Darfur is experiencing a 20-year civil war and several conflicts are fueled by competition over water. Drinking unclean water also causes preventable illnesses that are worsened by a dearth of health-care infrastructure. And where the only wells are far from villages, many children – particularly girls – are pulled from school to spend hours collecting water for their families.

“Once we ensured that water sources were established nearby to keep children in school, we wanted to remove further obstacles that came in the way of pursuing higher education,” Izzeldin says. “The vision was that children deserve to dream freely, regardless of the circumstances they grew up in.”

That vision prompted the non-profit to launch a foundation last September to provide full academic scholarships for African youth facing financial barriers that has already funded schooling for one dental student and one medical student.

The foundation is also committed to establishing health-care facilities in rural communities. Its current campaign aims to build a medical centre in Abdoun, Sudan named after the late Omar Elhassan, a young man remembered for his generosity.

Izzeldin has continued asking locals what they wish for, and now films their responses as an ongoing video series for The Wishing Well Company’s social media accounts. “We're trying to give a voice to the neglected populations within these rural areas that are not really covered by popular news,” Izzeldin says. “We can't forget that these people exist.”

While filming, he met an Elder who was responsible for bringing water to several villages and became blind after contracting an infection from unclean water. Izzeldin says the story inspired him to pursue medical school, and that he hopes to become a doctor who travels throughout remote regions in Africa to provide care.

Izzeldin wants to build a team and expand his organization's work throughout Africa. Applications will soon be posted on the company’s Instagram account.

“It's something that we all should do when we are put in a position of privilege. We should be helping.”

Africa

A global educator who wants to transform leadership in Africa, Patrick Awuah receives U of T honorary degree

U of T prof explores experiences of Canadian-born youth of Somali descent

Elite Africa Project shines light on the creativity, expertise and power that thrives on the continent

U of T partners with leading African universities and Mastercard Foundation to advance health care in Africa

After a harrowing escape from Sudan, U of T scholar Nisrin Elamin calls on the world to pay attention

‘Areas of mutual interest’: U of T looks at ways to further deepen its ties with African universities and partners

Read more about U of T’s partnerships in Africa

Nursing Week: Women's health advocate Sheila Tlou on breaking barriers in the fight for global health equity

U of T grad’s startup tackles energy crisis in Nigeria: CNN

Read the story at CNN

In a bid to promote global ‘brain circulation,’ U of T expands partnerships with African universities

Non-profit brings clean drinking water to communities in Sudan