Health by Motorbike: UW faculty, students head to Kenya this summer

June 20th 2010 Simon Kuran
Arts & Humanities
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Araceli Alonso
Alonso meeting a friend's baby for the first time last summer at a health camp and mobile clinic in Godo. The baby wasn't too sure about meeting a new person, no less one wearing 'artifacts' over her eyes!

Gender and Women’s Studies Lecturer and Faculty Associate, Araceli Alonso (RN, MA, MS, PhD) will be spending her summer working on her "Health by Motorbike" initiative in rural Kenya.

Alonso will be conducting a summer health camp for women and adolescent girls in Lungalunga, Godo and Perani.

The health camp, funded by the Davis Foundation for Projects for Peace, will provide culturally sensitive health training and education about reproductive health, maternal health, child health, preventable diseases, and treatable infections.

As a part of this community health initiative, Gender and Women’s Studies undergraduate students, Megan Kleber and Sarah Maria Donohue, have been awarded a Wisconsin Idea Grant and will travel with Alonso to distribute mosquito nets to pregnant women and children under five to help prevent the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in that particular part of Kenya, malaria.

After the camp, the Mama-Toto (mother-child in Swahili) Mobile Clinic will be launched to serve women in the same communities throughout the year.

Alonso was also recently named a UW-Madison's Outstanding Women of Color honoree for 2009-10 for her work building community to create an inclusive and respectful environment on and off campus.