About Us
Mission
The Afya Bora Consortium aims to contribute to health systems strengthening in African partner countries by implementing a leadership training program targeting African and US health professionals. The Afya Bora (“better health” in Swahili) fellowship model will focus on training leaders for HIV/AIDS prevention, care and research programs. Afya Bora’s long term goal is to establish a sustainable program that is owned, led, and conducted by a consortium of institutions in Africa and that addresses leadership and country ownership needs for critical health priorities and improved population health.
History
In April, 2009, a group of 8 academic institutions met in Nairobi, Kenya to discuss a potential collaboration to train health professionals to become leaders in global health. The institutions are:
- University of Nairobi
- University of Botswana
- Makerere University
- Muhimbili University
- University of Washington
- Johns Hopkins University
- University of Pennsylvania
- University of California in San Francisco.
Notably, each University had schools of nursing as well as medicine, and a number also had schools of public health, all of which were included in the Consortium. From this initial meeting, a number of subsequent meetings and discussions led to the creation of the Afya Bora Consortium, and the creation of a one-year Fellowship focused on training leaders in global health. To test the plan, a Pilot of the Fellowship was conducted – in a slightly truncated format, from January through August 2011, with 22 trainees (19 African, 3 U.S.).
In July 12, 2012, we launched the the first year of the full fellowship program, with 20 trainees (18 African, 2 U.S.).
