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Dr. Georges Bwelle Aids in the Fight for Rural Healthcare

Encouraging Development in Africa

By IGI Global on Nov 5, 2013
The average number of doctors in the west African country of Cameroon is approximately one for every 5,000 people. The life expectancy for inhabitants of this remote location is about 51 years. According to Our Africa, Cameroon bears an abundance of natural resources and good agricultural conditions, but poverty is rampant, with 36% of children under the age of 5 suffering from stunted growth due to lack of adequate nutrition.

Cameroon citizens living in this seasonally wet climate deal with the constant threat of malaria and cholera. Less than 40% of the population has access to piped drinking water, and less than half have proper sanitation facilities.

Georges Bwelle has dealt with these issues firsthand. For 21 years, he watched his father slip in and out of consciousness after an automobile accident in which he suffered a broken arm. Due to lack of healthcare, the break led to an infection, which eventually spread to his brain, causing a hematoma that would affect him for the rest of his life. Georges spent years taking his father to overcrowded clinics and hospitals, getting whatever treatment he could.

“Seeing his father and so many of his countrymen suffer, Bwelle was determined to do something about it. He became a doctor himself, working as a vascular surgeon in Yaounde's Central Hospital. And he started a nonprofit, ASCOVIME, that travels into rural areas on weekends to provide free medical care. Since 2008, he and his group of volunteers have helped nearly 32,000 people.” (Trekking through mud, rivers and jungle to provide free medical care, CNN)

Once a week, Dr. Bwelle and about 30 other volunteers and medical practitioners pack up vans with medical supplies and trek through whatever conditions they meet to visit remote villages in need of assistance. Offering free medical care to hundreds of patients all over Cameroon, Dr. Bwelle and his crew have administered over 700 free surgeries in the past year. Dr. Georges Bwelle is one of the top 10 chosen for CNN's Hero of the Year, an award that will provide the hero with the most votes $250,000 to continue their extraordinary work. Vote for Dr. Bwelle at CNN Hero of the Year.

The development of solutions to support citizens of remote areas such as Cameroon is vitally important to Africa’s welfare. More than 218 million people in Africa suffer from extreme poverty. Despite its often mismanaged economy, Africa remains the third largest continent in land mass and population. It continues to offer unexploited business opportunities for entrepreneurs, global corporations, and institutions. Creating awareness of this un-tapped resource creates direct support for Dr. Bwelle in the advancement of rural areas in Africa such as Cameroon.

Emerging Business Opportunities in Africa: Market Entry, Competitive Strategy, and the Promotion of Foreign Direct Investments presents the basic business modeling for developing appropriate strategies in exploiting business opportunities in the emerging economy in Africa. This book offers insight into the challenges and successes aiming to encourage researchers and students of business in creating a value for doing business in Africa.

Written by Christopher O. Gekonge of Doing Business in Africa, a non-profit company out of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, this book is part of the Research Essentials Collection; a series offering succinct discussions on niche topics in a wide variety of subjects. Sized and priced appropriately, these concise, advanced, and timely resources will be perfect for supplementary course usage, targeted towards instructors and students, as well as the independent researcher looking for the most recent and innovative research in their field.

View an interview with author and African business researcher Christopher Gekonge.
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Business and ManagementHealthcareMedical, Healthcare, and Life SciencesBusiness & Organizational ResearchHealthcare Information SystemsHuman Resources DevelopmentBook SeriesBooks & E-BooksInfoSci-BooksResearch EssentialsMiddle East & AfricaNorth AmericaAuthor NewsResources for InstructorsResources for Researchers

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