Miriam Were | |
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 Were in 2022 | |
| Born | Miriam Khamadi Were 12 April 1940 Kenya |
| Alma mater | William Penn College; University of Nairobi |
| Occupation(s) | Public health advocate, academic and writer |
Miriam Khamadi Were (born 12 April 1940) is a Kenyan public health advocate, academic, and recipient of the first Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize. In 2022, she has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for her work in public health. [1] [2]
As a graduate of William Penn College, in Oskaloosa, Iowa, Were began a career with a focus on helping others. With a degree in Natural Sciences and postgraduate Diploma in Education, she taught high school chemistry and biology before medical studies.
Were qualified as a medical doctor from the University of Nairobi, and she rose to become head of the Department of Community Medicine at Nairobi's School of Medicine. [3]
Were's studies at Johns Hopkins University led to her 1981 doctorate in Public Health, Health Planning and Management. [4] She has applied this training and academic background to programs focused on community-based empowerment. Her work aims to help others move towards implementing creative, effective, and self-sustaining programs. Her experiences have been marshaled in encouraging community-based initiatives. [3]
As a co-founder of the UZIMA Foundation and in her work with African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF), Were sought to put her academic training to good use. She focused on the process of bringing basic medical services and health rights to women and children in the villages of East Africa. [5]
Were is the current chairperson of the National AIDS Control Council (NACC) Kenya. From a position closely associated with the Office of the President, NACC coordinates the national HIV/AIDS response in Kenya. Dr. Were is also the serving Chairperson of the African Medical and Research Foundation (AMREF) Board. In addition, she finds time to serve on the advisory board of the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC), as well as on the board of directors of Medical Assistance Programs (MAP) International (US). [3]
Were was Director of the United Nations Population Fund Country Support Team (UNFPA/CST) for East and Central Africa and Anglophone West Africa, based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Prior to that, she was the World Health Organization (WHO) Representative and Chief of Mission in Ethiopia. Before WHO, she was Chief of Health and Nutrition in UNICEF, Ethiopia.
Were was recruited to UNICEF from the Department of Community Health in the Faculty of Medicine, University of Nairobi where she had become head of that department. While teaching at the university in Nairobi, she initiated the Community-Based Health Care (CBHC) project in Kakamega, in Western Kenya. Dr. Were was the Director of CBHC in the period from 1976 through 1982. This project won the UNICEF Maurice Pate Award of 1978, the first time any African institution had won this award. [3]
She was appointed the Chancellor at Moi University, Eldoret, on Thursday, 19 September 2013.
In 2021, she took up the role of Community Engagement and Involvement lead in the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) CLEAN-Air(Africa) Global Health Research Group. [1] She is also a member of the Lancet COVID-19 Commission. [6]
Were has also written poetry and fiction and is the author of four novels: [7] [8] The Boy In Between (1969), The High School Gent (1969), The Eighth Wife (1972), [9] and Your Heart Is My Altar (1980). [10]
The Japanese Government established the Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize in July 2006 as a new international medical research and services award. The first announcement of plans to create this prize was timed to mark the official visit to Africa by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in May 2006. The timing also marked the 80th anniversary of Dr. Noguchi's death. [15] The Prize aims to honour individuals with outstanding achievements in combating various infectious diseases in Africa or in establishing innovative medical service systems. [16]
The inaugural presentation ceremony and the initial laureate lectures coincided with the Fourth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), which was held in Yokohama in late-April 2008. [17] This year's conference venue was moved from Tokyo to Yokohama as another way of honouring the man after whom the prize was named. In 1899, Dr. Noguchi worked at the Yokohama Port Quarantine Office as an assistant quarantine doctor. [18]
Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda made the actual award presentation, and the Emperor and Empress were present at the 2008 ceremony, along with a large number of African heads of state. [19]
Were was honoured in the Medical Services category; her laureate lecture topic was "Potential for Improvement in Africa's Health Through Evidence and Persistence in the Spirit of Dr. Hideyo Noguchi". [4]
The first awards of this international prize—consisting of a citation, a medal and an honorarium of 100 million yen (US$843,668) were only intended to be the first in a continuing series; and subsequently the Prize is expected to be awarded every five years. [20] The prize has been made possible through a combination of government funding and private donations. [21]
Hideyo Noguchi, also known as Seisaku Noguchi, was a prominent Japanese bacteriologist who in 1911 discovered the agent of syphilis as the cause of progressive paralytic disease. Noguchi was one of the first Japanese scientists to gain international acclaim and recognition.
Wangarĩ Maathai was a Kenyan social, environmental, and political activist who founded the Green Belt Movement, an environmental non-governmental organization focused on the planting of trees, environmental conservation, and women's rights. In 2004 she became the first African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
Max Theiler was a South African-American virologist and physician. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1951 for developing a vaccine against yellow fever in 1937, becoming the first African-born Nobel laureate.
Amref Health Africa was founded in 1957 by three surgeons as the Flying Doctors of East Africa. Three doctors – Sir Michael Wood, Sir Archibald McIndoe and Tom Rees – drew up a plan to provide medical care in East Africa, where they had all worked for many years as reconstructive surgeons.
The University of Nairobi is a collegiate research university based in Nairobi and is the largest university in Kenya. Although its history as an educational institution dates back to 1956, it did not become an independent university until 1970. During that year, the University of East Africa was split into three independent universities: the Makerere University in Uganda, the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, and the University of Nairobi in Kenya.
Sir Michael Wood, was a British medical doctor. He studied medicine, and in 1943 he qualified as a surgeon and soon after was married to Susan Buxton, daughter of African missionaries.
Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) is a conference held regularly with the objective "to promote high-level policy dialogue between African leaders and development partners." Japan is a co-host of these conferences. Other co-organizers of TICAD are the United Nations Office of the Special Advisor on Africa (UN-OSAA) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The series has included: TICAD I (1993); TICAD II (1998); TICAD III (2003); TICAD IV (2008); TICAD V (2013). The next conference is scheduled for Kenya in August 2016. It will be the first time the event will be held in Africa, previous conferences were all held in Japan.
The Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize honors men and women "with outstanding achievements in the fields of medical research and medical services to combat infectious and other diseases in Africa, thus contributing to the health and welfare of the African people and of all humankind." The prize, officially named "The Prize in Recognition of Outstanding Achievements in the Fields of Medical Research and Medical Services in Africa Awarded in Memory of Dr. Hideyo Noguchi," is managed by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
Sir Brian Mellor Greenwood, CBE, FRCP, FRS is a British physician, biomedical research scientist, academic, and recipient of the first Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize.
The Kennedy Airlift was started in 1959 by a 28-year-old Kenyan, Tom Mboya, who sought support for promising Kenyan students to get college and university educations in the United States and Canada. It brought hundreds of students from East Africa from 1959 to 1963 and was supported by many North American educational institutions, foundations, and individuals such as the African American Students Foundation (AASF) and African Americans including Harry Belafonte, Jackie Robinson, Sidney Poitier, and Martin Luther King Jr. It got its popular nickname in September 1960 when Senator John F. Kennedy in a close presidential campaign arranged a $100,000 donation from the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr Foundation to cover airfare for the autumn 1960 group of East African students just as the program was running out of funds.
Raychelle Awour Omamo is a Kenyan lawyer and politician and an advocate of the High Court of Kenya. From 2020 to 2022, she was the Kenyan Foreign Affairs Minister.
Alex Coutinho is a Ugandan physician, public health advocate, academic, and a former executive director of the Infectious Diseases Institute of College of Health Sciences under Makerere University.
Esther Madudu is a Ugandan midwife. Madudu has had nearly 15 years of experience first at a maternity home in Kumi District, and now working at Tiriri Health Center IV in Uganda.
The Cut is a 2017 Kenyan film directed by Peter Wangugi Gitau.
Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR) is a medical research institute located at the University of Ghana in Accra, Ghana. It was founded in 1979 with funds donated by the Japanese government.
Susan Wood (1918-2006), British philanthropist and writer who helped create the African Medical Research Foundation (Amref) in Kenya and founded an enterprise to employ poor single mothers. She lived much of her life in Kenya.
Githinji Gitahi is a Kenyan medical doctor who serves as the Global Chief Executive Officer of Amref Health Africa as well a former co-chair of the UHC2030 Steering Committee. In July 2021, he was appointed as a Commissioner in the Africa COVID-19 Commission.
Meshack Ndirangu Wanjuki, is a Kenyan physician, public health leader and certified coach.
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