The year of 2023 promises to be one of the busiest yet. Having spent 6 months working and travelling around the world, visiting family, friends, people and places, I aim to divide my time between working in the UK and in Africa once more. NHS clinical duties resumed in January and will occupy half my time and fund most of our work in Africa. The other half of my professional work will focus on the academic commitments I have to UK and African Universities.

Whilst we have now completed the first 3 year funded project with the University in Tanzania, we are still writing up the papers whilst also applying for a further grant to develop this work further. Our intention is to use the information which we have gained from our knowledge of the diseases which cause most morbidity and mortality in East Africa to train up local health care providers to recognise and treat diseases more effectively at an earlier stage. I have been asked to lead the practical aspects of teaching and training in Tanzania for this project which we hope will extend to incorporate the work we’re doing in Zanzibar and Pemba islands to develop clinical services for immune and rheumatic diseases which appear especially prevalent in these areas.

This in turn will complement the other informal medical support we have offered in Kenya, Uganda, Madagascar and Zambia over the last few years. We have friends and collaborators in each of these countries and hope to amalgamate some of these work streams to share knowledge and resources more effectively. In parallel, we are continuing to develop our humanitarian efforts with the refugees and street children. We are funding the construction of a school in Wau, South Sudan, so that the refugees can return home from Hope House having completed their education in Kenya. This will allow them to share their new found knowledge with their own people whilst also offering them a sustainable income. Likewise, in Uganda we are looking to establish links with Social Services through Kelah House to address the factors that lead to children taking to the street. Their lived experiences as street children will allow them to use their education to work with Social Services to improve the levels of care and support for families afflicted by poverty and ill-health. In the longer term, our intention is that our own Kelah House will become part of the extended social service provision and will be incorporated in to the wider establishment. Together these humanitarian projects have supported over 50 desperately disadvantaged young people through education and we intend that they should help ensure a better future for all.