AMREF Reception November 9th, 2010
On November 9th, 2010 AMREF held a reception at the home of its board member, Tim Wilson, for partners, and supporters. The occasion was the opportunity to meet Dr. Peter Ngatia - Director of Capacity Building for AMREF – and to hear him give a presentation about AMREF’s programs and activities, and our impact on African families and communities.
Summary of the Presentation
Dr. Ngatia highlighted several of AMREF's priority intervention areas.
| Maternal Neo-natal and Child Health Training, Community & Health Systems Strengthening HIV/AIDS/STIs/TB | Malaria Water & Basic Sanitation Clinical Outreach & Emergency Response |
He then went on to tell the crowd that according to the World Health Organization, Africa is home to about 11% of the world’s population, has a mere 3% of the world’s health workers who struggle against 24% of the global disease burden.
AMREF focuses much of its efforts on training health professionals. The most important are probably the lowest skilled, the traditional birth attendants. Many of the areas we serve are so rural that there is no hospital or health facility nearby and therefore no doctors immediately available. Training health workers at the community level ensures that there is always someone in the community who is trusted, and the citizens are able to go to for advice. Sometimes the health worker can treat them, other times they refer the person to a higher level facility. Without this knowledge being available at the community level another person would die of something that is treatable most anywhere else in the world.
