Professor Were awarded by France

The French Ambassador to Kenya, Elisabeth Barbier, presented to Prof. Miriam Were the medal of Knight in the French National Order of the Légion d’Honneur.
The ceremony took place at the ambassador’s residence, in the presence notably of Aida Odinga, the wife of the Kenyan PM Raila Odinga.
Prof. Were is an emeritus professor of Community Health at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Nairobi. She is a proponent of a school of thought which has largely spread outside the frontiers of Kenya. This movement encouraged communities to take charge of the basic health needs, rather than waiting for the services of the hypothetically set up public health services in the village. For this school of thought, the basic services, notably those of prevention and hygiene, must be organised by the village community on a voluntary basis.
Prof. Were has worked at the World Health Organisation and at Unicef. She is actually chairs the international board of directors of the association AMREF (African Medical Research Foundation), which is active on five countries of East Africa and in Somalia and Burundi. She is also the director of the National Aids Control Council, a Kenyan organisation which intervenes in the fight against HIV and Aids. She is also the founder of the NGO Uzima (life in Swahili) which works to empower and improve the health of Kenyan youth, development of the economy and the promotion of justice.
In her speech, the French Ambassador praised the numerous actions in favour of the promotion of public health and the fight against HIV and aids, carried out by Prof. Miriam Were, throughout her career. She recalled that the fight against HIV and Aids is a priority of France. France is the second contributor to the Global Fund against Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria. (Its contribution is around 300 million € each year) and the first contributor to UNITAID (160 million € each year) which finances anti retroviral treatment from taxes collected on air travel.