I will be heading off to Ethiopia the day after Thanksgiving to do some teaching for the American International Health Alliance (AIHA).  That should be an interesting exchange related to quality improvement in health care, and I will be working with partners from Ethiopia.

I am also going to attend the 16th Annual Conference on AIDS and STDS in Africa (ICASA).  I”ll be involved in two sessions, one about quality of care and one about care for orphans and vulnerable children. I expect to learn a lot about HIV/AIDS and the most current issues and challenges.  (See ICASA website http://www.icasa2011addis.org).

While in Addis I have also arranged to visit some sites related to my work with Save the Children.  I’d like to identify a community to participate in the Wisconsin Without Borders Marketplace.  The hope is that we can support a community micro-enterprise effort designed to benefit vulnerable children (due to AIDS or other causes) by buying and reselling their products — scarves, jewlery, baskets — these are some of the crafts that I expect to find.

A few friends and students have suggested that I cover my field work and the conference on my blog www.globalhealthreflections.wordpress.com  so that I can share what I am learning with the UW community, especially our growing community of global health students. Please feel free to visit and see my posts about previous trips to Ethiopia.  And sign up to follow the blog if you want to get updates by email!