East Africa Site Visit—Kenya
![Many Aga Khan partners with the University of Michigan delegation, all in masks](/sites/default/files/styles/content_width/public/2022-02/Feb10_D4S246_GroupMasked_web.jpg?itok=sme8zYpq)
Joseph C. Kolars
Above. Aga Khan University partners with the University of Michigan delegation after presenting a virtual seminar on our developing partnership.
When I talk to colleagues about the opportunities we have to partner on projects that will impact global health, I might start with Africa—perhaps specifically with Kenya, where the delegation is now. The partnerships we are developing with Aga Khan University are particularly exceptional opportunities. AKU has campuses in multiple countries around the world and is known for its coalition building and innovative programming at all levels of the organization. This nonprofit university has a strong mission to advance marginalized populations.
Africa is and will continue to be a nexus of solution-making for a host of global health issues. Many African countries suffer with low-income status and have nevertheless figured out how to do more with very little. In parts of Michigan, maternal health outcomes rival the burden in many African contexts. The same can be said for mental health, where we have struggled for decades to use the wealth of resources at our disposal to help people in need.
We can do better, as we see the challenges and opportunities before us and lean into our own ability to enable the true change-makers in the world. At the University of Michigan, we will continue to engage in dynamic settings where we can part of co-designing interventions that can improve the health of all communities.
Looking around the conference rooms during our meetings with our AKU partners, I am struck again and again by the amount and incredibly high level of talent and how eager everyone is to give of that talent to a vision well beyond themselves and their own communities.
AKU is clearly committed to transforming society. Academia at its best always seeks to advance the well-being of all people and all communities. Part of our commitment to our global partners is that we always work to propel them, to equip them for success, and to be ready to the difficult things necessary to make true, lasting change for the better.
Now is the time to engage even more fully than we have. The Center for Global Health Equity is a place of collaborative, reciprocal innovation. Here in Africa we have been empowered and enabled by our partners and hope we've done some of the same for them. On our campuses in Michigan, our charge is to enable and empower faculty, staff, and students to do this kind of forward-thinking work, to be problem solvers.
Challenging settings are truly the places for innovation, growth, and change. The current pandemic has disrupted society but has also allowed and even forced us to think differently. Our partnerships in Africa are core to our mission of excellent research, education, and service.
Joseph C. Kolars, MD, MACP
Director, Center for Global Health Equity
Senior Associate Dean and Professor of Medicine
Josiah Macy Jr. Professor of Health Professions Education,
U-M Medical School
Professor of Health Management and Policy,
U-M School of Public Health
Read more about the delegation's experiences in East Africa Site Visit—Photo Journal.