The Visionary – Professor John-David Kabasa leading vets out of the “ivory tower” academic system and into the community

As Team Leader and Principal of the Makerere University College of Veterinary Medicine, Animal Resources and Biosecurity (COVAB), Professor John-David Kabasa is a man of action.  He leads with conviction and does not hesitate to change the way things are done if they no longer achieve what they set out to accomplish.

How many other academic leaders, could you imagine changing the whole syllabus for 50 final year veterinary students to allow them and their supervisors to go out into remote communities and to treat 220,000 cattle over 10 weeks? That is precisely what John-David organised in 2006 when he heard about the threats to the communities in Northern Uganda of convergence of the two types of sleeping sickness ravaging the country.

Being brutally honest, he admitted that some of the vet students graduated with much theory, but in practice, they ran the risk of limited technical and social skills, including community mobilisation, and differentiating domestic animal breed-types such as goats and sheep from well-nourished Alsatian dogs and calves.  As a result, he gave the go ahead to use the student "brigades" in the largest mass treatment exercise ever organised by the University.

The result is well known as a "win-win" situation. Students felt fulfilled because they had put into practice the skills they had been taught. Their confidence and professional pride were reinforced by their service to the community. Communities on the other hand were grateful to Makerere University and the student teams for their heroic sacrifice and engagement in helping to clear cattle of infection in these remote rural areas and thereby protecting the health and livelihoods of the whole community.

But John-David did not stop there.  Convinced that this type of "One Health" in action was the way to go, he set about bringing institutional and curricula changes to ensure that the gains made under the SOS "entrepreneurial" way of working could be sustained.

And so "AFRISA" was born - the Africa Institute for Strategic Resource Services and Development, with its vision of creating Healthier and Wealthier communities through the deployment of young professionals into the community (www.afrisa-africa.org). Convinced of the innovation, the Makerere governing Council endorsed the initiative to fully establish AFRISA as an autonomous, flexible, not-for-profit Academic-Community-Public-Private Partnerships platform that functions as a regional centre of excellence in strategic development services. John-David is the founding director of this innovations platform. The AFRISA "MINTRACS" (Makerere In-training Community Services) programme now organises field experience for over 50 vet students and 20 faculty staff every year, refining their skills and serving the communities, into which many of them will hopefully return. AFRISA further offers and nurtures a variety of youth programmes including skills and enterprise incubation, international cultural exchange, volunteer community services and apprenticeships.

Actions speak louder than words. In John David's case, he has used his oratory skills through the SOS initiative to make sure that these drive change for the better.