Continent On The Edge
Oscar-winner Forest Whitaker hosts A FORUM exploring Africa’s health crisis
By Carl Kozlowski 11/05/2009
Africa is perpetually afflicted with some of the worst health conditions on the planet. But starting with the Clinton administration, through the Bush years and into the current Obama presidency, Americans have stepped in to help with a mix of government and private-sector assistance that is actually making some headway on what were once intractable problems.
From 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, the battle against diseases that kill disproportionately large numbers of young African mothers and children comes to Caltech. The Chicago-based GEANCO Foundation is hosting “Women and Children First,” its 2009 Symposium on African health, at Ramo Auditorium, hosted by Oscar-winning actor Forest Whitaker. Whitaker, who won Best Actor for 2006’s “The Last King of Scotland,” is also a veteran activist on African issues.
The GEANCO Foundation’s Web site (geanco.org) says the event will spotlight the efforts of organizations that are saving women’s and children’s lives in Africa, and the “strategies and programs employed to improve maternal and infant health in Africa,” among them the prevention of bleeding deaths in childbirth. The event’s co-sponsors are Caltech Student Affairs, radio station 89.3 KPCC, the Gilliam Foundation and the Caltech Y.
Speaking by phone from the foundation’s offices in Chicago, Chief Operating Officer Afam Onyema said that the organization had been a longtime dream of his family, stretching back to the years before his parents emigrated from Nigeria to the Windy City. In fact, GEANCO is an acronym created from the first initial of each member in his family.
They became a nonprofit organization in 2005 and have been sponsoring educational events, including a 2008 symposium at Caltech on HIV and AIDS in Africa.
“Our overall purpose is to develop world-class medical and educational facilities in Nigeria,” explains Onyema. “It started with my parents, who are native Nigerians, came to Chicago in the 1970s and originally planned on moving back to build a hospital there. They realized they had amazing opportunities here and sent me to Harvard and my brothers and sisters to Georgetown. But as we got older, we realized we still had chance to save thousands of lives in Nigeria.”
Onyema’s former Harvard classmate Chess Stetson, now a PhD candidate at Caltech, helped make the connection with the Pasadena science institution by advising Onyema that he needed to raise awareness of how bad health issues really are in Africa before asking for money to help his cause.
“Chess had former Caltech president David Baltimore help host the symposium on HIV/AIDS in Africa last year, and this year the focus is on women and children who die in Africa from very treatable causes,” says Onyema. “Caltech has embraced this goal and our mission and we realize we have to energize and fight these battles together. This year we wanted a celebrity with ties to Africa, and found that Forest traces his lineage back to Nigeria itself. He’s a very generous, warm person who’s very active in the fight against malaria and childhood mortality, so we approached him and he agreed to host.”
Women and Children First will be hosted from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday at Caltech’s Ramo Auditorium, 332 S. Michigan Ave., Pasadena. Tickets are $40. Call (626) 395-4652 or write events@caltech.edu.
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