HEALTH AFRICANETWORK 1996-2009

Development projects and North-South-South programme as tools of cooperation

Authors: Helli Kitinoja, Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences (); Merja Seppälä, Central Ostrobothnia University of Applied Sciences ().

DESCRIPTION OF THE NETWORK

Health Africa Network consists of ten Finnish Universities of Applied Sciences (UAS) and one University both from Uganda and Kenya. The Finnish higher education institutions are Seinäjoki UAS, Central Ostrobothnia UAS, Häme UAS, Kajaani UAS, Kemi – Tornio UAS, Helsinki Metropolia UAS, Mikkeli UAS, Oulu UAS, Pirkanmaa UAS and Vaasa UAS. The higher education institutions from Africa are MakerereUniversityand Publich Health Nurses`College from Uganda and MasenoUniversity from Kenya.

HISTORY OF THE NETWORK COLLABORATION

The Health Africa Network (former name Uganda Network) was grounded in 1996 by some Finnish UASs and their faculties of Health Care. The Network has collaborated with Public Health Nurses’ College (PHNC) in Kampala, Uganda since 1996. In the beginning the Uganda Network was in the same development project with the Finnish Mannerheim League for Child Welfare, later the Network had a governmental project financed by the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Uganda Tororo district.The project focused on primary health care and also undertook some research on health situation in Ugandan schools. The Ministry of Education and Sports and the Ministry of Health in Uganda have participated in the collabortion.

In 1999 the Finnish NGO Health Africa Development Cooperation Organisation (HADCO) was grounded. After that it was possible to apply financing for the joint projects also from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Finland, for the HEIs it was not allowed.

Student and teacher exchange between Finland and Uganda, related to the development project, started in the year 1996: from ten to 15 Finnish students andfrom one to three teachers were sent twice a year to Uganda,from1996 to the end of 2008 total of 350 students and 45 teachers.First Ugandan teachers/experts visited Finland in May 1997 and first Ugandan public health nurse students came to Finland in the year 2000. From 2000 to the end of 2008 total of 21 students from Public Health Nurses´ College and from 1997 to the end of 2008 totally 15 teachers/experts came from Uganda to Finland.

In Kenya first negotiations concerning student and teacher/expert exchange took place at MasenoUniversity in the year 2000. Finnish teacher and some of Finnish students made study visits to MasenoUniversity and Homa Bay Health Centre during their exchange period to Uganda.Official teacher and student exchange between Finland and Kenya began in2004 as a part of North-South Programme. From 2004 to the end of 2008 totally 20 students and nine teachers came from Kenya to Finland and 15 students and six teachers from Finland to Kenya.

The Health Africa Network had an eight-year-long history of the cooperation before starting the North-South (later North-South-South Programme) Health Africa project in 2004, when CIMO launched the programme first time. The partners in Finland and in Uganda were already committed to the collaboration, so it was easy to start a new project. The partners know each other very well, they have functioning relations and communication has been easy already before the North-South project. The main way of communication has been telephone and web meetings once a month and partner meetings twice a year inside Finland and e-mail, fax and telephone between Finland and African countries.

OBJECTIVES FOR THE COOPERATION

The overall objective of the joint activities is to maintain, support and develop cooperation in the fields of Social Services and Health Care, Food Management, Technology and Music and Arteducation between Uganda, Kenya and Finland. The cooperation also aims at raising the standards and improving the quality of Social Care, Primary Health Care and Nutrition and Health Technology in those countries utilizing the multiprofessional educational collaboration.

Specific aims are to support the family health and wellbeing in the villages in Uganda and Kenya as well as to support school health and nutrition education.Providing healthy meals during schooldays has been seen an effective tool in improving learning achievement in elementary school. The Project activities also aim at promoting sanitation and hygienic practices among school children as well as among staff and members of the whole community,

The main purpose is to decrease poor living conditions and weakness of the people who are living in Uganda and Kenya and to increase the awareness of the UN´s Millenium Declaration and aims of the development policy. The Health Africa cooperation is based on the UN`s millenium goals as well as the goals ot the Finnis developemnt policy:

1)Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger,

2)Promote gender equality and empower women and to promote respect of the human rights and democracy,

3)Ensure environmental sustainability by preventing global environmental hazards and to promote economical interaction

4)Increase global safety

5)Sustainability

IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PROJECT

The main activities of the project are student exchange and academic exchange twice a year, intensive course once a year, joint curriculum development, network meetings yearly and research activities during the visits and exchange periods. Administrative visits belong also to the North-South-South Health Africa project. They are important for monitoring the collaboration and collecting the feedback from the partners as well as preparing mobility, intensive courses and the network meetings. The administrative coordinator of the North-South-South Health Africa project is Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences and the academic coordinator comes from the Central Ostrobothnia University of Applied Sciences.

The criteria for the exchange students are:

*good health status,

*good pass of the former studies in home institution,

*priority will be given to the third or fourth year students, a student has to be at least second year student,

*personal study plan is in coherence with the curriculum,

*good level in spoken and written English,

*professional motivation and commitment to the exchange,

*professional motivation and commitment to the work in developing countries,

*social ability to study, work and live in a multicultural surroundings,

*participating in the orientation days organized for the outgoing students by the Health Africa Network and CIMO.

Final decision of the selection will be made after discussions between a student, tutoring teacher and the International Coordinator / Health Africa contact person in a home institution.

The content of the studies during the exchange period will be equivalent with the content of the curriculum in home institution, including theoretical studies, practical training and applied research. When planning the personal study plan it requires flexibility from the students and tutoring teachers. The personal study plan has to be agreed on by the student himself/herself and by the tutoring teacher. The language of the studies will be English both in Finland and in Africa. The official language in Uganda and Kenya is English, too. Based on the joint agreement the studies are fully recognized in a home institution in each three country.

The Health Africa Network will organise the orientation days two or three times a year for the outgoing students and teachers. The orientation will be held in some of the Finnish UASs and experienced teachers and the coordinators of the Network are responsible for the orientation. CIMO will offer a national orientation for the outgoing students once a year.

The Moodle teaching and learning enviroment is also used and there can be found a lot of information related to the studies in Africa as well as diseases, culture and living in Africa and the content of the project. In the Moodle learning enviroment there is also a chat line for the outgoing and incoming students and the independent preparation is possible by using the Moodle, too. Orientation to the incoming students and teachers will be held in their home institutions but also in the host institutions in Finland. In Finland the social programme for the incoming students and teachers will be organized together with the partners in the Health Africa Network. For the Finnish teachers there is an opportunity to participate in the KEPA´s volunteer programme training course, too. In Uganda and Kenya the first week of the exchange period will be for the students and teachers an orientation period to the new culture and enviroment. The orientation will be organized by the partner Universities in host countries. After exchange period the reflection and feedback is important both for the students and for the teachers.

In Finland the exchange students have personal tutors (a student and a teacher), in Uganda and Kenya there are group tutors from host institutions. Finnish exchange teachers are also tutoring the Finnish students during the exchange periods in Uganda and Kenya. It is important that the students and teachers have their exchange period at the same time. Besides that the teachers have teaching in a host institution and they participate in the curriculum development work and applied research in each three countries.

The first intensive course “Culturally Appropriate Care” was hosted by the Public Health Nurses`College in Kampala in September 2008. The amount of the students and teachers who participated in this intensive course, was totally 63, from Finland, Kenya and Uganda. The second intensive course will be held in Kenya, MasenoUniversity in April 2009.

The evaluation of the implementation and results of the project have been made by the partners in Uganda, Kenya and Finland. In Ugandaand Kenyathere are steering committees. In Finland the whole Health Africa Network (Network meetings) is responsible for the evaluation.

The evaluation of the quality have been made in relation to the aims of the project and the aims of the Finland´s development (Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland) and education (Ministry of Education) policies as well as in relation to the policies in Uganda and Kenya. The evaluation is based on the reports of the students and teachers as well as experiences of the students, teachers and administrators in each of these three countries. The evaluation is made after each exchange period. The quality criterias have been defined together. The required reports and evaluation have been made for the North-South-South Programme and CIMO in Finland, too.

THE BENEFITS OF THE COOPERATION FOR THE PARTNER INSTITUTIONS IN NORTH AND SOUTH

The project supports the strategic aims of internationalisation in the Finnish Universities of Applied Sciences. The project has also supported the challenge to integrate the aims of the Development Policy into education and the project has strengthened the role of the Finnish Higher Education Institutions in the work with developing countries. Finnish Higher Education Institutions are responsible in participating in the Development Policy activities in Finland and globally.

For the Public Health Nurses´ College in Uganda, the most important objectives for the collaboration have beenapplied research between Finland and Uganda, school health education, nutrition education, curriculum development as well asstudent and teacher exchange. The Public Health Nurses` College has also been able to increase the amount of the public health nurse students.

For the MasenoUniversity the applied research and curriculum development related to the student, teacher and researcher exchange, is one of the main priorities. Family health and wellbeing in the villages have been seen important.

On the point of view of the Finnish UASs all of these objectives are in line with their strategies of the international education. The Finnish HEIs which have been participating in the Health Africa project during over ten years have noticed that they have similar objectives and so they also get mutual benefits from the project. For the teachers the objectives are very clear and they are committed to these.

This collaboration has developed and resulted into mutual recognition, understanding and confidence. The cooperation has been continuous and has led to well-functioning practices. The experience that has been gained in the previous years will be beneficial to both partners.Dissemination of the results and experiences will be made through reports, intensive courses and seminars, network meetings, articles, orientation and international days and curriculum development.

DISSEMINATION OF THE PROJECT RESULTS

The school health and health care education in nutritional aspects once developed will be part of the school curriculum from generation to generation and the knowledge gained by the school children will be passed on to the community. The school children will be the leaders of the future community.

In the future it will be seen that the State of Uganda runs the PHN education and allocates jobs to public health nurses. The education will be funded by Ministry of Education and Sports. There is already a plan of establishing new PHN posts in Ugandan Health centres based on a Health Care Strategy. The Health centres are owned by the State, and thus they are funded by Ministry of Health. The village programmes will be established also as part of normal activities of the health centres.

Student and teacher exchange activities from Finland to Africawill continue also in the future. The necessary funding will be provided by the teachers and students themselves and their home Universities of Applied Sciences and other sources.On the other hand the exchange of students, teachers and experts from Kenya and Uganda to Finland will decrease, if the opportunity to receive North-South-South scholarships comes to an end. Either it is not possible to organise intensive courses in South without North-South-South grants and supportive Network meetings.

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