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AAAS Africa Program and Partners Launch Initiative with African Universities Against HIV/AIDS

The Africa Program has launched a two-year initiative, Women in Higher Education and Science: African Universities Responding to HIV/AIDS. The initiative will catalyze activities by East African universities in response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. It will focus on enhancing science education and strengthening community outreach to foster civic engagement with HIV/AIDS efforts. The initiative is a collaboration with U.S. and African partners, including African Women in Science and Engineering (AWSE), Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT), Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), and International Women in Science and Engineering (IWISE).

The initiative was launched with a workshop, held 3-5 December 2001 and featuring presentations and discussions with U.S. science education experts, U.S. and African non-governmental organizations, and university teams from Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya. Participating universities were Egerton University, JKUAT, Kenyatta University, Maseno University, Moi University, and University in Kenya, Makerere University in Uganda, and Sokoine University of Agriculture in Tanzania. Some 55 participants gathered at the meeting facilities of ICRAF (the International Center for Research in Agroforestry) in Nairobi, Kenya, to

The proposed action plans, begun at the workshop itself and to be completed over the next few months, are to be submitted by 1 March 2002 to a competitive review process for funding support. Four university teams will be selected to attend the 2002 Science Education for New Civic Engagements and Responsibilities (SENCER) Institute in the United States and to receive additional support for program implementation. The workshop and its follow-up activities are funded by a grant awarded by the Association Liaison Office for University Cooperation in Development (ALO) and administered by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

The university representatives included not only professors and administrators, but in several cases students, who reported on a variety of student-led initiatives on their campuses. In addition, representatives from several East African research institutes -- Mikocheni Agricultural Research Institute, Kawanda Agricultural Research Institute, and Kenya Forestry Research Institute -- were in attendance, as they are dealing with similar impacts within their institutions and, like universities, have close ties to surrounding communities. Also in attendance were representatives from Rand Afrikaans University in South Africa, AAAS, the AAC&U SENCER Program, IWISE, the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) Gender and Diversity Programme, Beloit College, Rutgers University, and a Kenyan NGO working to support HIV disclosure.

A report summarizing the presentations, discussions, and plans that took place at the workshop over the course of its two-and-a-half days is available online, as are many of the original workshop presentations. Copies may also be obtained from either AWSE (contact information below) or the AAAS Africa Program.

The following presentations are available (unless otherwise noted, all are PowerPoint presentations):

Contact information for AWSE:

African Women in Science and Engineering
United Nations Avenue
ICRAF House
P.O. Box 30677
Nairobi, Kenya
Tel: 254-(0)2-524000, Ext. 4750
Fax: 254-(0)2-524001
Email: awse@cgiar.org

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