Florence Oloo, Harambee 2023 Award, this Wednesday in Madrid.HARAMBEE (HARAMBEE)
“African solutions to African problems”. Researcher Florence Oloo (Elderet, Kenya, 63 years old), winner of the 2023 Harambee Prize for the advancement and equality of African women this Wednesday, uses these five words to illustrate what she believes to be the most effective formula to promote the development of African women continent. “The most obvious case was that of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has not affected the African population in the same way as the rest of the world.” “It is true,” he concedes, “that people died, but most suffered from a common cold” – as of March 10, 2023, according to John Hopkins, 6.8 million people worldwide lost their lives to the coronavirus, just over 250,000 in Africa University. The question that should be asked, according to Oloo, is “whether there is something genetically different in Africans” that makes them more resilient to the coronavirus, and the only way to answer that is to “study it scientifically in Africa itself.” ” he affirmed in an interview with EL PAÍS this researcher, who professes to be a Catholic, revealing the diversity of profiles that feed into the development of the continent.
The promotion of scientific research is one of the tasks to which Oloo has dedicated a large part of his professional career. As Professor of Chemical Sciences at the Technical University of Kenya and Director of the Nanomedicine Platform at the Center for Research in Therapeutic Sciences (CREATES), an institution affiliated with the Scientific and Industrial Research Council of South Africa, science has since been her ” Passion”. that it was a girl. “We were three brothers and three sisters and my father, who believed in education, encouraged us all to go to school without discrimination and I studied at one of the best science schools in Kenya,” he says.
Oloo knows the privilege she enjoyed as a child was “not very common” back then, but she’s always wanted to use it to inspire other women, especially the younger ones. “I want girls to think about what they can do when they see me,” says the scientist, convinced that the key to change lies in “education”. “I am very proud to be an African and to have the opportunity to help my country through my work,” she affirms emphatically.
They take samples from Africans, use them for research purposes, and then these people don’t benefit from the results obtained, they can perhaps buy the developed drugs cheaper or for free
However, according to Oloo, science must always be accompanied by “respect for people”. Out of deep Catholic convictions – she was vice-rector of Strathmore University, promoted by the founder of Opus Dei, José María Escrivá de Balaguer – she chairs the Strathmore Ethics Committee, made up of eleven African scientists whose mission is to analyze the research protocols of the continent . “We strive above all to protect people’s rights according to international standards,” explains the professor, who is a little proud that they managed to stop investigations that “attack” people. “We fight against scientific corruption because it is important that the data is not falsified, that the rights and privacy of the participants are respected and that the results of scientific research are genuine,” he emphasizes. And he insists on the need to increase research in Africa, now very focused on “Covid-19 and malaria,” to determine, for example, what doses Africans specifically need, which may differ from those of other populations are needed.
According to Oloo, his faith, which took place in 2009 at the Benedict XVI. participated in the convened Synod for Africa influences its “mode of operation”. “I’m a single person,” she says, explaining that she cannot separate her religious dimension from her professional one – “I would become schizophrenic,” she jokes. But this belief in a God, he affirms, is not what provides him with the solution to scientific problems, although he believes that it reinforces the ethical dimension of his work. Among the violations of ethical principles identified by the committee that Oloo herself set up with international funds (from the European and Developing Countries Clinical Trials Partnership), the scientist highlights, for example, the projects in which “African samples are taken, they use for research, and then those people don’t benefit from the results they get because they may be able to buy the drugs they develop at cheaper prices or for free”.
opportunities for rural women
If science is her first passion, her other is “work for women living in rural Kenya”. This is through the Jakana Study Center, a project she supports in Kanyawegi, a small town 18 kilometers from Kisumu (West Kenya), where she trains women between the ages of 18 and 30 so that they can build up their own businesses. .
“I’m from the Luo people and we Luo are from Kisumu, so I wanted to work for these women who don’t have opportunities,” says Oloo, who is now focused on raising funds to further strengthen the program, to which she belongs will present her award, sponsored by hair care brand Rene Furterer. “A lot can be achieved with very little money and changes can be seen very quickly,” he says.
The scientist is particularly concerned about the challenges that, in her view, these women have to face: “Even in girls, dropping out of school leads to idleness and this situation exposes them to sexual relationships, which leads to teenage pregnancies, HIV infections or early marriages”.
—What would you say to a woman who asks you for advice on using contraception?
— These girls see me as a role model, they see what I have achieved not because I am a Christian but as a human being.
—But if they ask you about birth control methods. What would you tell them?
—We are talking about reproductive health and it is necessary to listen to the body. I listen and respect them. I think women need to understand what chemicals are doing to their bodies now, 10 years from now and 50 years from now. And then they decide.
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