Articles

This fascinating and timely article was published in June, written by AWB volunteer and University of Manitoba professor, Dr. Jason Kindrachuk. The article references the three weeks he spent on an AWB project at the University of Nairobi Institute for Tropical Infectious Diseases in Kenya. Read the article in Forbes here.

AWB’s vision is that higher education is essential to building a more prosperous, healthy, and stable world. Such a world cannot exist unless it is free of racism and injustice of all kinds. Therefore, at this time, we reiterate our unwavering commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion as fundamental values at the heart of our work and indispensable elements of the type of higher education in which we believe.

“In a remote area of Nepal, an eight-year-old boy is carried into a tiny hospital by his grandparents. The boy has fallen from a height and sustained a complex fracture in his elbow. Treating the injury will require resetting and stabilizing bones, but this involves a specialized surgery and medical hardware not available to the only doctor in the area, whose hospital is hours away from the nearest city or specialist. Worse yet, the boy’s circulation has been impeded by the fracture, and without treatment, he will lose the use of his hand and forearm.

The doctor does what he can to set the bones and stabilize them, which he does by sedating the boy himself (there are no anesthesiologists where he works), setting the bones, and stabilizing the fracture with metal wiring, all while taking direction from an open textbook.

Incredibly, the surgery is a success. The boy will make a full recovery.

A week after the operation, Professor Karl Stobbe at McMaster University looks over post-operation x-rays from the case. Glancing over his shoulder, his colleague, an orthopedic surgeon, remarks, “That’s honestly as good a job as I could’ve done.”

It’s an incredible feat of medical resilience and resourcefulness that Stobbe says he has witnessed many times. For the past three years, Stobbe has been working with Nepal’s Patan Academy of Health Sciences to build the country’s capacity to train doctors for practice in rural areas, an effort that will have an enormous impact on the wellbeing of those living in these areas.”

Read more of this article about the work of AWB in Academica’s Today’s Top Ten in Higher Ed on March 27, 2019.

“Higher education advocates across Canada and beyond will often claim that academics make an enormous impact on the world beyond the ivory tower, but skeptics are often quick to ask, “How, exactly?” Advocates might then point to social benefits such as advancements in medical technology or the fostering of an engaged democratic citizenry, but another benefit that they might wish to highlight is the impact that higher education is having in developing countries that are looking to build healthier, wealthier, and more just societies for all.

For Corrie Young, Associate Executive Director for Academics Without Borders, there are countless instances in which post-secondary institutions serve as a key vehicle for global development. ‘Take rapid urbanization happening in many countries’ says Young. ‘You need to think about how governments at multiple levels are going to try and address the challenges that come with a shift like that. First, you have to design and perform research that gives you accurate information on what is actually happening, then you need the expertise to turn that research into effective policy.'”

Read more of this article about the importance of AWB’s work in Academica’s Today’s Top Ten in Higher Ed on February 25, 2019.