Village Hopecore International: One year fellowship in global health availability
June 28th, 2012 to July 25th, 2013
Overview
Village Hopecore International is offering a fellowship in global health for individuals and graduate students who are interested in and have backgrounds in the areas of public health, nursing or medicine at its project site in Chogoria, Kenya. The fellowship will begin on June 28th, 2012 and end on July 25th, 2012. The fellow will receive a $500 per month living stipend.
Fellowship Description
Village Hopecore International is a non profit organization registered in Kenya and the United States with a mission to eradicate poverty and improve the health and living conditions of the Wameru people of Chogoria, Kenya. At this time, the project affects approximately 6,000 villagers and 6,000 students in our school-based mobile clinics. The project has been operating for the last 11 years and is situated on Mt. Kenya, four hours north of Nairobi by car at 5,000 feet elevation in a lovely area of tea and coffee farms. It is located approximately 20 miles south of the equator.
In 2000, HopeCore began a unique and innovative poverty eradication project that combines a Grameen style micro enterprise village bank, and an adult education program with a village level health care program. The health care program focuses on child and maternal health issues, and HIV and malaria prevention.
In 2009, HopeCore received funds to begin a comprehensive malaria education and prevention program which involves proving mosquito nets to people receiving microloans. The program involves educating individuals about the prevention and treatment of malaria. The distribution of the nets are followed by home visits to each of our families to be sure that the nets are being used correctly. At the time of the home visit, health data are collected on our families and further education on safe water, good nutrition, child-maternal health issues, family planning and HIV prevention and testing is provided. We now have a full time, Kenyan project nurse and four community health workers as part of our public health team, and a full-time peace corp volunteer is now working in Chogoria with our microenterprise program.
Since February 2011, HopeCore has been operating a school-based mobile clinic program by making a partnership with 16 primary schools and 8 secondary schools in the Chogoria area. Each mobile clinic begins with health education on various topics including malaria, HIV/AIDS, hygiene, and nutrition. Subsequently, students in our 24 schools receive free health services for the most common health issues (e.g., malaria, typhoid). In 2011, HopeCore conducted 55 mobile clinics and benefited 4,441 patients in total. We are now installing water tanks and water chrolination systems in all 24 schools, and by the summer 2012, we hope to have all our students under long-lasting insecticide treated malaria prevention bed nets.
The Fellow is responsible for all operations, including financial and budget management, human resources, and reporting to donors. The Fellow will also work on grant writing and fundraising.
The fellow will participate in a hands-on fashion with this ongoing community health project. The fellow’s major responsibilities will be to supervise the public health and malaria prevention program including the mobile clinic, mosquito net distribution and health education activities. The fellow works closely with the Kenyan nurse, Community Health Workers, and local schools, hospitals and government offices. HopeCore will provide training and supervision to the fellow to accomplish the responsibilities listed above. The fellowship began in 2009 and our current fellow is the fourth in our program.
Fellowship Start Date and Duration
The dates of the fellowship are from June 28th, 2012 to July 25th, 2013.
It is critical for all applicants to be able to comply with the exact dates above. The extra four weeks at the end of the fellowship will allow the outgoing fellow to help orientate and train the new incoming fellow. The outgoing fellow will be paid appropriately for the extra four weeks. If one cannot comply with the listed dates, please do not apply for the fellowship.
Compensation and Lodging
HopeCore will provide a $500 per month stipend to the fellow. The stipend is designed to cover all lodging and living expenses in Chogoria as well as travel expenses and health insurance expenses. HopeCore has a safe and secure one-bedroom apartment for the fellow in our local hospital’s compound. The apartment has cooking facilities, refrigerator and complete bathroom facilities. The rent for the apartment is $80 per month and will be paid out of the $500 per month stipend. Food costs in the village should run about $60 per month. It is required that for the fellow’s own protection, each fellow must have health insurance and evacuation insurance. The stipend was designed to provide $100 per month to help with the cost of health insurance and evacuation insurance. The fellow will be responsible for transportation costs to and from Kenya. Roundtrip airfare from the west coast of the US to Nairobi will be around $2000, less expensive from the east coast. The fellow will receive four weeks of vacation during the fellowship. The $500 per month stipend should cover all of the fellow’s transportation expenses getting to Kenya, all of the living expenses while in Chogoria and most if not all the cost of health insurance while in Kenya. The stipend is designed to allow a fellow to spend a year in Kenya without having to incur additional educational loans.
Application and Selection Process
The application and selection process will involve three stages. In the first stage, applicants e-mail a one page, cover letter stating the reason for their interest in our fellowship and a CV to Phil Rasori, MD, Medical Director of Hopecore at prasori@aol.com and Liz Applegate, former global health fellow, eliz.applegate@gmail.com. The cover letters and CV’s will be evaluated and a selection will be made of competitive applicants. In the second stage, competitive applicants will be interviewed over the phone. Following the phone interviews, a group of finalists will be selected. In the third stage, the finalists will have an in-person interview or another phone interview if geographical considerations do not allow for an in-person interview. References will be obtained at this time. All finalists will have a chance to talk by phone and e-mail with the current Hopecore Fellow to ask questions about the position and living conditions. We plan to make the final selection of the fellow by the middle of April, 2012.
Further information
More information on HopeCore can be found at www.villagehopecore.org/blog.
