A midwife from Rwanda is benefiting from the University of Aberdeen’s involvement in a scheme which is helping to revitalise education in the African country.
Immaculée Muhawenimana, who has been a midwife for several years and works as a midwifery instructor in Kigali, is spending a year at Aberdeen studying for a Master of Science degree in Midwifery. This is an important area of work in her country, where maternal and infant mortality rates are exceptionally high. The doctor to patient ratio in Rwanda is 1 in 55,000.
Today she was officially welcomed into the College of Life Sciences and Medicine when she met with Professor Neva Haites, Head of the College, Professor Jenny Mordue, Head of the College’s Graduate School, and Dr Alice Kiger, Director of the University’s Centre for Advanced Studies in Nursing.
The University of Aberdeen is among 10 Scottish universities involved in the Rotary University Scholarship Scheme, Rwanda (RUSSR) which is organised by Gerda Siann, Professor Emeritus in Gender Relations at the University of Dundee.
Study fees are waived by the universities to make it easier for Rwandan women to come and study in Scotland.
The Ministry of Education in Rwanda pays living costs, while Rotary International links each student with a supporting family and helps handle the financial and organisational arrangements.
Professor Mordue said: “This is the first scholarship of this kind for our College and we are delighted to welcome a post graduate student from Rwanda to study at Aberdeen.”
Dr Kiger added: “Immy is working very hard and is mastering her course. She is accepting the challenge very well of coming to a different environment and doing a degree taught in English, which, while she speaks three other languages, is not her first language.
“We are delighted to have Immy in the programme.”