The Illinois-Njala Global Health Partnership is a 2014-2015 Focal Point project supported by the Graduate College at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. While the Ebola outbreak in West Africa has forced some of our plans to change, this collaboration is organizing seminars, workshops, and other activities around themes of global health which seek to foster partnerships with colleagues at Njala University in Sierra Leone.
Background
The University of Illinois displays breadth and depth in disciplines relevant to multifaceted global health challenges, from the One Health of humans, animals, and environment to the development and implementation of technologies which address clean water accessibility to the business of agricultural production in developing economies. The Global Health Initiative seeks to advance a cohesive program which utilizes global health as a common thread to demonstrate our capacity for interdisciplinarity as the norm in research, education and outreach. This includes developing programs which prepare the global health leaders of tomorrow with sensitivity to globalization, experience with international partnership, and a mindset of interdisciplinary collaboration.
Njala University in Sierra Leone was established in 1964 by faculty from the University of Illinois with support from the U.S. Agency for International Development. Since that time, civil war in Sierra Leone lasting from roughly 1991 through 2002 took a tremendous toll on the Njala University system, including loss of facilities, staff, and students. But Njala has since emerged form wartime losses to embark on a phase of growth in the international scene, including strengthening of the relationship between Njala University and the University of Illinois, led by a number of faculty and students, primarily facilitated by the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences (ACES).
The Global Health Initiative at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a 2011 Focal Point program, recently assembled a delegation which sought to explore opportunities to expand this relationship with Sierra Leonean partners around a global health theme through an exploratory visit with support and participation from the College of Medicine, the Center for Global Studies, Scientific Animations without Borders (SAWBO) at the University of Illinois, and the University YMCA. Building upon this commitment to a core interdisciplinary global health partnership, the Global Health Initiative and collaborating partners are seeking to launch a formal program which establishes the Illinois-Njala Partnership as a fixture of scholarly activity at Illinois.
Seminars
Learn more about the seminars that the Illinois-Njala Global Health Partnership hosts
Interdisciplinary Global Health Certificate
A multi-disciplinary working group is holding workshops to discuss the development of new courses around global health themes and collaboration with colleagues at Njala. Themes for new courses include:
- Tropical Epidemiology
- Food Security in Resource-Limited Settings
- Sustainable Engineering Practices in Resource-Limited Settings
Learn more about global health courses and programs being developed by this collaboration
Illinois-Njala Sustainable & Innovative Global Healthcare Technologies Program (INSIGHT)
The relationship between Illinois and Njala seeks to open a new aspect in our global health partnership. INSIGHT uses global collaboration to address issues such as malnutrition, water quality, and environmental degradation.
Learn more about what projects INSIGHT is doing