THE GLOBAL VOLUNTEERING NETWORK
Empower
GhanA
Ghana is a thriving West African economy, with a health system built around a National Insurance Scheme. Its largely Anglophone population have their own unique challenges that are serviced by a variety of healthcare providers ranging from those trained in the western biomedical model to its own indigenous traditional healers. Ghana is also unique in having a matriarchal society: Queen Mothers have the ultimate say in the selection of local rulers.
Ghana has a strong link to MegaReach as some of its key members have worked there on one of the largest randomised controlled maternal mortality trials: ObaapaVita. From our base in the remote Brong Ahafo region situated in the central forest-savannah transition zone, MegaReach is working to empower the rural women by providing them with direct access to medical facilities, especially during the crucial period surrounding pregnancy. We are working closely with a health facility in the regional capital Kintampo that provides relatively modern facilities run by a very enterprising team of MARDiTRePers. Though access to Kintampo is far from easy (it involves an overnight bus journey from the Ghanaian capital Kintampo), its remoteness provides an ideal placement opportunity for budding professionals from many healthcare disciplines to undertake comprehensive training.
Kintampo, blessed with two scenic waterfalls and a world renowned research facility (Kintampo Health Research Centre) will provide the full spectrum of exposure to the realities of controlling disease in low resource settings. In return, your visit may generate the exposure we need to further develop the local facilities. If you would like us to organise a placement opportunity which may include support to conduct a publishable research project, please do contact us through the “Comment” section under the “Contact” tab in the main menu. We would also like to hear from others who may have similar health facilities open to collaboration with MegaReach. Alternatively, if you know of a deserving person who may benefit from receiving treatment through our partners in Kintampo, please do contact us through the “Request” section under the “Contact” tab. It would fit ideally to our vision of making a real difference to real people!
Hello, my name is Sammy Danso. My research interest includes application of Artificial Intelligence approaches to a variety of biomedical data including natural language. I did my PhD with the Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Biological Systems at The University of Leeds. I joined the University of Edinburgh in Nov. 2013 as a Post-doctoral Research Fellow to work on a Computational Linguistics project.
A word from the Coordinator of African Projects...
I am currently a member of the research team at the Centre for Clinical Brain Sciences at the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine, University Of Edinburgh Medical School. Prior to this, I worked for the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine as a Research Fellow in Computing & Data Management on numerous large scale epidemiological and clinical studies carried out in developing countries including Ghana for over 10 years. I find MegaReach particularly exciting because it works right at the very frontline of need. I know the developing world desperately requires such initatives and am very keen that Africa gets the maximum benefit from MegaReach.
