On Saturday 13th April KIT Royal Tropical Institute hosted and celebrated Africa Day, and announced the winners of the Albert Schweitzer Awards.

The Dutch Albert Schweitzer Fund (NASF), which focuses on promoting health care in Africa, presented the prize for the ninth time during the Day.

• Jonathan Vas Nunes (31, tropical doctor in training) was chosen as the winner of the first prize by the professional jury.
• Pim Bongers (30, tropical doctor in training) and Marijke Kingma (33, tropical doctor) received incentive prizes.
• And Hillmann Batuo (21, medical student) won the Audience Award.

Albert Schweitzer First Prize 2019

Jonathan Vas Nunes received the start subsidy of € 5,000 for the further execution of his project ‘Heal a Wound, Buy a Bee’. This initiative focuses on setting up an organic beekeeping in the Masanga Hospital in Sierra Leone. Honey has important disinfecting properties and can be used for wound care. With the local production of honey, Jonathan and his colleagues ensure better treatment of patients and a better life for local residents and for the bee. The jury felt that this project was a model of development cooperation 3.0: an initiative that is innovative, supported by the stakeholders themselves, and demonstrably effective for the well-being of people and nature and the environment.

Albert Schweitzer Incentive Prizes 2019

One of the € 500 incentive prizes was for the “Masanga Dental Health” project by Pim Bongers (30, tropical doctor in training). Neglect of oral hygiene and a late visit to a doctor with dental problems sometimes cause serious, out-of-control inflammation. Pim Bongers wants to do something about this with his initiative.

The other incentive prize went to “Stimulate to Simulate” by Marijke Kingma (33, tropical doctor). With her project, Marijke Kingma wants to organize an innovative, interactive form of training of care workers who supervise childbirth in Tanzania, in order to improve care in delivery rooms.

Albert Schweitzer Audience Award 2019

In addition to the prize of the professional jury, the Albert Schweitzer Audience Award was also given. For this Award the public cast more than 4,000 votes via www.nasf.nl. The ‘The Power of CPR’ project by Hillmann Batuo (21, medical student) received the most votes with 1175 votes and won the 2019 public prize of € 1,000. Hillmann is going to promote CPR skills in Cameroon with his project.

About the Day

For more than 25 years, Africa Day is the event that brings Africa to the Netherlands. It’s a day full of films, workshops, speakers from home and abroad, and more than 40 partner organisations converging at the largest public event about Africa and international cooperation in the Netherlands.

Africa Day 2019 takes place once again in our beautiful historic buildings, KIT Instituut voor de Tropen in Amsterdam. This year’s theme is “Migration: African Perspectives.” This year key-note speakers address African perspectives on topics such as health, migration, politics, literature, and economics.

The Foundation for European Progressive Studies, in cooperation withthe Foundation Max van der Stoel, organise Africa Day, with the financial support of the European Parliament.

The full programme: www.afrikadag.nl/