Merck Foundation Chairman and CEO together with The First Lady of Ghana during their Alumni Summit 2024 in Accra.
Merck Foundation marked a milestone of providing 146 scholarships to Ghanian doctors in 42 critical specialties during their annual Alumni Summit – Celebrating their legacy of transforming patient care landscape in Ghana. Merck Foundation Ghana Annual Summit and Awards Ceremony 2024 in Accra, Ghana, chaired by The First Lady of Ghana, H.E. Mrs. REBECCA AKUFO-ADDO, Chairman of Merck Foundation Board of Trustees, Prof. Dr. Frank Stangenberg-Haverkamp, and me. During the Summit, we met and acknowledged the Merck Foundation Alumni and the Winners of the Merck Foundation Recognition Awards 2023 from Ghana.
It was a great honor to meet my dear sister, H.E. The First Lady of Republic of Ghana and the Ambassador of “Merck Foundation More Than a Mother” to discuss our long-term partnership, celebrate our great achievements and mark an important milestone of success and impact of our programs, since 2018. I am very happy to share that we have together transformed the patientcare landscape of Ghana by providing 146 scholarships of One-Year Online PG Diploma and Two-Year Master Degree for local doctors in many underserved and critical medical specialties in Ghana such as Fertility, Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiology, Endocrinology, Respiratory, Acute Medicine, Sexual and Reproductive care, Embryology, Respiratory, Critical care, Psychiatry, General Surgery, Dermatology, Emergency and Resuscitation Medicine, Gastroenterology, Neuroimaging for Research, Pain Management, Rheumatology, and Neonatal Medicine and more. This is a huge milestone and revolution in patient care across Ghana.
Watch the Partnership Journey Video here:
Moreover, it was amazing to felicitate the 33 winners of Merck Foundation Media, Fashion and Song Awards 2022 and 2023 from Ghana and discuss with them the critical role they can play to create a culture shift, be the voice of the voiceless and be the Merck Foundation health and social champions. Please see here the list of winners here from Ghana and other countries and apply for awards.
During the Summit, Merck Foundation hosted a signing event for all the Storybooks. Merck Foundation Chairman, myself, and the First Lady of Ghana signed several copies of our children’s storybooks. These books include “More Than a Mother,” which aims to instill family values of love and respect from an early age; “Educating Aku,” “Jackline’s Rescue,” and “Ride into the Future,” which emphasize the importance of empowering girls through education; “Not Who You Are,” which teaches boys to love and respect their future wives and seeks to eliminate domestic violence; and “Sugar-Free Jude” and “Mark’s Pressure,” which promote a healthy lifestyle and raise awareness about the early detection and prevention of diabetes and hypertension. Thousands of copies of these storybooks will be distributed to school students in Ghana.
We also conducted the Health Media Training in partnership with The First Lady of Ghana and Ghana Journalists Association for the Ghanian journalists, to emphasize on the important role that media plays to influence society to create a cultural shift with the aim to address wide range of social and health issues such as: Breaking Infertility Stigma, Supporting Girl Education, Women Empowerment, Ending Child Marriage, Ending FGM, and/ or Stopping GBV at all levels; to underscore the importance of Empowering Girls and Women in Education and to understand the Influence of infertility stigma and other social issues like GBV, Child Marriage, FGM etc. on women and couples – Social and Psychological Impact. Apart from this, the media training also included a session on the importance of increasing the awareness of early detection and prevention of Diabetes and Hypertension. The training session was addressed by prominent Medical and Media Experts.
We are working closely with Ghana First Lady foundation to inspire girls and sensitize communities about the importance of girl education. As a part of our ‘Educating Linda’ program, Merck Foundation will sponsor the education of 20 deserving schoolgirls. Together, they also executed the TV program “Because I Want To Be” with the aim to reduce dropout rate for adolescent girls and make sure they stay on in school till after SHS and to provide employable skills to adolescent girls who cannot go back to school.
We are committed to transforming patient care in Ghana and we will continue to scale up these numbers in order to create a stronger platform of skilled medical professionals and strengthen the public healthcare system in Ghana and rest of Africa.
Kind Regards,
Senator, Dr. Rasha Kelej,
CEO of Merck Foundation
President of “More Than a Mother” Campaign
