Emory to Train Students on Needs of Poor Countries

Emory University will soon launch an initiative to teach students about the economic, health and social needs of the world’s poorest nations, and international banker, George Vojta, who is helping to fund the new project, would like to see Georgia businesses participate.

“We hope to have Georgia-based businesses deeply involved and supportive of [the initiative], said Mr. Vojta, an international banker for 40 years and an adviser to the World Bank.

Mr. Vojta, who recently conducted an email interview with GlobalAtlanta from his office in New York, has been working with Emory since 2004. He is also the founder and chairman of estandardsForum Inc., a financial services information company that provides information on a country’s potential for sustainable development.

Mr. Vojta began working with Sam Cherribi, director of the new initiative and professor of sociology at Emory, during the 2004-2005 school year, where he helped to teach a class on economic development in Mali, which sparked the development initiative that is to begin by this fall.

Dr. Cherribi told GlobalAtlanta that Emory would welcome collaborating with other Georgia-based universities on development programs in impoverished nations under the new initiative.

The initiative will teach undergraduate and graduate students the economic, social and public health needs of developing nations, drawing on the expertise of Emory professors in its schools of nursing and medicine, as well as its Goizueta Business School, Rollins School of Public Health and College of Arts and Sciences. The program will also invite experts from across the world to share their experiences with students and draw on Atlanta-based resources with projects in developing nations, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CARE, the Carter Center and Coca-Cola Co.’s Africa Foundation, Dr. Cherribi said. “Atlanta is really a very special hub for this kind of activity in the U.S.,” Dr. Cherribi said citing the aforementioned institutions. “If [development work] doesn’t happen in Atlanta, then it doesn’t happen anywhere else in the U.S.,” he said. Emory’s initiative is to incorporate development approaches from the non-profit, state and private sectors and encourage students to visit developing countries. “I want to expose the students to the reality of the situation,” he said. For the two-semester class on Mali that he and Mr. Vojta taught last school year, Dr. Cherribi took some 20 students to Mali to meet with local professionals and test development projects that they had worked on throughout the school year. The projects included proposals for distributing a CDC-designed water disinfection product throughout the capital city of Bamako, using cottonseeds and fibers for commercial purposes, selling Malian handicrafts over the Internet, expanding digital education projects throughout the country and developing cultural links to Atlanta to promote tourism to Mali. The trip was partially funded by Coca-Cola Co.’s Africa Foundation. While the initial 2004-2005 class focused on economic development initiatives in Mali, the final development initiative will consider the needs of poor nations across the globe. Dr. Cherribi began working at Emory in 2003, after serving eight years as a member of the Dutch Parliament. He has worked on development issues in a number of African countries through initiatives of the Dutch government. For more information on Emory’s Development Initiative, contact Dr. Cherribi at scherri@emory.edu.

Source: Nema Etheridge for GlobalAtlanta