Overview

Village Hopecore International is offering a fellowship in global health for individuals 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 July 1st, 2012 and end on July 21st, 2013. The fellow will receive a $500 per month living expense stipend.

Fellowship Description
Village Hopecore International is 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 has been operating for the last ten years. The project site is situated on Mt. Kenya, three 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. Hopecore was possibly the first micro enterprise bank in the world to offer micro loans to HIV+ individuals. In 2009, Hopecore received funds to begin a comprehensive malaria education and prevention program which involves placing 6,000 individuals associated with Hopecore under treated malaria bed nets which last for five years before requiring re-treatment. 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 is gathered 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 to help with the education and training of our members. The fellowship will feature the opportunity to participate in a hands-on fashion with an ongoing community health project. The fellow’s major responsibilities will be to supervise our school mobile clinic, malaria prevention program, provide general health education  with our nurse at the time of the home visits, and to work closely with our project nurse, Community Health Workers, and the regional hospitals and other NGOs to provide health services. Hopecore will provide training and supervision to the fellow to accomplish the responsibilities listed above. The fellowship program began in 2009 and four fellows have worked in the village.

Read about previous Global Health Fellows.

Fellowship Start Date and Duration

The dates of the fellowship are from July 1st, 2012 to July 21st, 2013. It is critical for all applicants to be able to comply with the exact dates above. The extra three weeks will allow the outgoing fellow to help orientate and train the new incoming fellow. The outgoing fellow will be paid appropriately for the extra three weeks. If one cannot comply with the listed dates, please do not apply for the fellowship.

Compensation and Lodging

VHI 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 will arrange for a safe and secure apartment for the fellow in our local hospital’s compound. The one bedroom 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. The stipend was designed to provide $100 per month to help with the cost of health 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  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 VHI at prasori@aol.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 interview by phone the current Global Health Fellow. We plan to make the final selection of the fellow in middle of April, 2012.