Big Think

Question: What is the Africa Education Initiative?

Chudy Nduaka: Part of, you know, the work that I do, especially in Africa with the foundation that I founded, the Africa Education Initiative, is centered around health care and education for Africa's children. We have essentially offices and liaison officers in about four or five countries in Africa: Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Cameroon. We also have work that we've done with students in Kenya, you know; we're hoping to go to South Africa next week. And the programs we run are all student-centered and geared towards children to provide them with the basic needs that they need for their education. Everything from scholarship programs to curriculum enhancement programs, technology enhancements, supplying donated computers. Pfizer's been a big help, you know, donating these laptops to us and we in turn make sure that the students and the schools can have them and use them in Africa. And then the public health education and public health program which has been a very big success for our foundation. Recently, about a year and a half ago, we partnered with Pfizer to start a health care clinic in rural Nigeria in a town, a rural village called Obem and this is about 20,000 people in that community. There was absolutely no health center there for them. They would have to drive or walk miles just to see a doctor, and so we, you know, went over there and helped them set up a primary health care facility and saw a lot of patients while we were there. And this health care facility staffed with doctors, nurses, partner with the local government there to provide those services, and there is a hope that this will continue to be open. We have since transferred the management of that facility back to the community, but it was one of our greatest achievements. And then the other one is, we started the first, one of the very first prevention mother to child care programs in Liberia, a country that's been in civil war for years. And we partner with Global Strategy out of California and provided test kits for testing HIV AIDS for patients, the mothers, the pregnant mothers, and providing the Neverapine to these expectant mothers for their babies to manage this very critical, very devastating disease.

Recorded on: 6/25/08