Yamada International House

Summit to highlight OHIO’s African health research, initiatives
Former Foreign Minister of Somaliland will deliver keynote address

Few people would imagine that a former Foreign Minister would be delivering babies in a hospital on a site that once housed a dump, but they have obviously never met Edna Adan Ismail. Ismail, who donated her UN pension and other personal assets to build the Edna Adan Maternity Hospital, will be the keynote speaker at the African Health Summit on April 18.

This is the second African Health Summit organized by the Institute for the African Child, titled “Campus and Community Together.” Ismail’s keynote address “Female Genital Mutilation: Where are we after thirty years of struggle against it?” will open the symposium at 1:00pm in Bentley Hall 233. Research and initiatives by Ohio University faculty and staff relating to health issues in Africa will be the focus of the afternoon panels.

Steve Howard, Director of OHIO’s Center for African Studies and the Institute for the African Child, and Matthew Adeyanju, Director of the School of Health Sciences, recently returned from Somaliland where they visited Ismail and her hospital. “Edna Adan Ismail is in the league of Africa’s heroes,” Howard said. “She is a woman who came from relative privilege who has lived the example of ‘from whom much as been given, much is expected.’”

Ismail, who is herself a certified nurse and midwife, served as the Republic of Somaliland’s Foreign Minister and Minister of Family Welfare and Social Development before beginning construction on the hospital in 1998. Her goal was to improve health standards for the Somali people, whose lives have been traumatized by ongoing regional conflicts and the civil war that was the focus of the 2001 film Black Hawk Down. In addition to providing critically needed care, the hospital also trains new nurses. Sixty women have already graduated from the hospital’s three-year general nursing program.

While in Athens, Ismail will tour O’Bleness Memorial Hospital’s facilities and will meet with the Athens Birth Circle - a community support organization for new and expectant parents.

“I hope that members of our community have a chance to interact with her and learn what commitment can do for people’s health under difficult political circumstances,” Howard added.

Full details and the schedule for the African Health Summit can be found online at http://www.african.ohio.edu/Conferences/index.html or by contacting Assistant Director of African Studies Acacia Nikoi at 740-597-1511 or nikoi@ohio.edu.

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