| From the President's Desk |
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Its almost a year now since the new executive was voted into the driving seat and l would like to take the pleasure of giving you an update of what the executive has done since AHILA 11 in Maputo. Guided by the resolutions of the past congress the executive has put its energies on issues that relate more to “house keeping” for the Association and we are proud that a number of resolutions have already been addressed and expect to have actioned on most of them by the third quarter of our term.
From the first meeting in Maputo, the committee has managed to take advantage of communication technology and held three meetings using Skype and on all occasions connected more than 7 countries. One of the first tasks the committee embarked on was re-vamping the AHILA website which now has a new look and is very informative and continues to be updated. Due to my work which gets me to travel through-out Sub Saharan Africa l have had opportunities to meet members of AHILA local chapters and also had discussion with librarians who can help revive or establish local chapters. To this end, the committee is happy to announce the re-launch of the UG-AHILA the chapter in Uganda. Ghana through the leadership of the College of Health Sciences is also looking into the chapter for AHILA. Recently l was in Ethiopia and met with a group of medical librarians who unanimously chose an interim chair to spear-head the formation of a chapter. AHILA was represented at the Africa Regional Ministerial Meeting on e-Health and the Secretary General delivered paper and motion on behalf of the Association. For more information on the meeting you can visit http://www.ehealthgh.com/library.php?id=20 I was also invited to the Health Information Community of South Africa (HICSA) where l was given an opportunity to talk about AHILA. On some of the plans ahead, AHILA will have a one day pre-workshop seminar at the forth coming SCECSAL Conference in Botswana http://www.scecsal.org/conferences/2010/2010.html . The Theme for AHILA 12 to be held in Burkina Faso next year is under finalization and should be announced soon. Together you and l can help make AHILA the giant it should be. Lets all put our hands together to promote good health and fight disease through information. Vimbai M Hungwe AHILA President This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it |