- Interim Director Nancy Mock Visits East Africa
- Posted August 11, 2008
Dr. Nancy Mock, Interim Director of the Newcomb College Center for
Research and Associate Professor in the School of Public Health,
recently returned from a trip to east Africa. Mock spent two weeks in
Rwanda and Uganda working on a number of special projects, and
attending a conference. Dr. Mock traveled with her ten year old son, Galen,
and continued work supporting the infrastructures of both Rwanda's
national health care system and the School of Public Health at the
University of Rwanda in Butare. Mock is also working on systems for
malaria prevention in Rwanda.
Dr. Mock started and
finished her East African trip in Rwanda, but she also spent some time
in Uganda, attending a conference of regional schools of public
health. The conference was held near Lake Victoria and was hosted by
the Leadership Initiative for Public Health in East Africa. Mock's
affiliation with the initiative afforded her the opportunity to attend
the conference. According to their website, "LIPHEA aims to strengthen
the capacity of Makerere University Institute of Public
Health and Muhimbili
University College of Health Sciences
to not only provide
effective public health leadership for Uganda and Tanzania, but also to
catalyze the training of public health leaders in the whole region."
Members of the Initiative worked during this conference to finalize the
legal establishment of this alliance of Public Health Schools.
Discussions around emergency management also took priority.
Transportation to and from Uganda was an exercise in comparison for Dr. Mock and Galen
as the trip from Rwanda took almost fourteen hours by car. The return
trip, by plane, took less than an hour. The distance between Butare,
Rwanda and Kampala, Uganda is close to 300 miles.
Often able to bring her family on her travels, Dr. Mock and her son did
find some recreational time in their schedule. A highlight was an exploration of
Akagera National Park near the Rwanda-Tanzania border. Akagera is home
to many exciting animals, and Dr. Mock and her son had the chance to
see a giraffe, a hippopotamus, baboons and various kinds of antelope.
Dr. Mock flexed her photography muscle during her trip, and an album displaying her photographs will be available soon.
