May 20, 2016

Businesspeople Raise $50,000 for New Medical School in Rwanda

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By Philip Baptiste, with ANN and Adventist Review staff

More than 500 Adventist business professionals have pledged US$50,000 toward the construction of a Seventh-day Adventist medical school that they hope will help fill a gap in health services in Rwanda.

The fundraising event was held this week at the site of the medical school on the campus of the Adventist University of Central Africa in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali.

“Through the medical school, the Adventist Church will equip future doctors and medical professionals to be able to help the countless individuals who lack access to quality health care,” the Adventist Church’s East-Central Africa Division, which includes Rwanda, said in a statement.

Africa’s east-central region currently has only one doctor for every 17,000 people, church leaders said.

The medical school, the Adventist Church’s seventh, will be built in multiple phases, including student residences, a state-of-the-art science lab, a teaching hospital, cafeteria, and guest housing. The first phase, costing $6.1 million, is slated for completion in September 2017. The total project is expected to cost $20 million to $30 million.

The Adventist Church also operates medical schools at Adventist universities in Montemorelos, Nuevo León, Mexico; Liberator San Martín, Entre Rios, Argentina; Ñaña, Lima, Peru; Silang, Cavite, Philippines; Babcock, Nigeria; and its flagship school in Loma Linda in the U.S. state of California.

The May 15 campus fundraiser took place three days after Adventist Church president Ted N.C. Wilson laid the cornerstone during a campus ceremony attended by Rwanda’s education and health ministers.

The fundraising event was a collaborative effort between the East-Central Africa Division and the education department of the Seventh-day Adventist world church. Keynote speakers included Lisa Beardsley-Hardy, education director for the Adventist Church; Adventist architect and philanthropist Zuki Mxoli; East-Central Africa Division education director Andrew Mutero; and the president of the East-Central Africa Division, Blasious Ruguri.

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