A medical care project for the Baka population of Cameroon, winner of the "Álvaro del Portillo Solidarity Awards".
Juan Uranga, Ignacio Zúñiga and Sergi Carulla, 5th year medical students, are the promoters of the solidarity initiative.
FotoManuelCastells/The three award winners together with Vice President of Students, Rosalía Baena (in the center), and Cristina Alfaro, presenter of the event.
01 | 10 | 2024
The project "No baka without healthcare", promoted by Juan Uranga and Ignacio Zúñiga from Navarre and Sergi Carulla from Mallorca, 5th year medical students at the University of Navarra, has been the winner of the first edition of the "Álvaro del Portillo Solidarity Awards".
This award, which recognizes the best solidarity initiative led by students of the University during the academic year 2023-2024, is endowed with 5,000 euros for the solidarity project .
The goal of Juan, Ignacio and Sergi's initiative is to strengthen access to health care for the Baka Pygmies in the Djoum area of southern Cameroon through the implementation of a mobile health strategy. The project, which started last June and will end in June 2025, aims to generate habits of access to public health attendance programs among the currently underserved Baka Pygmy population, through door-to-door visits offering basic health consultations, assessing health needs and referring to the health center or hospital, if necessary.
Volunteers will attend to public health problems that mainly affect this community, in particular malaria, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and the follow-up of pregnant women. Also, the goal is to provide health cards to the Baka community so that at the end of the project they will be linked to the public health services of Cameroon, thus ensuring the health continuity of this ethnic group , made up of about 600 people.
The project promoted by the medical students is supported by partnership of the NGO Zerca y Lejos and the local parish of Nkolembembe. Based on the dialogue between the local ZYL leaders and the university students, the Afanavoto district was chosen because it is a particularly isolated area due to its status, which aggravates its status of marginalization and vulnerability.
10 solidarity projects in 8 countries
A total of 10 projects were presented to this edition of the "Álvaro del Portillo Solidarity Awards", in which 60 students participated. Three of them in Guipúzcoa and Navarra, and the rest in countries such as Cuba, Honduras, Tanzania, Uganda, El Salvador, Cameroon, or the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The award is part of Founder's Week, a week in which the academic center celebrates various events to make known the figure of St. Josemaría, founder of the University of Navarra.
