The Arts for Health and Wellbeing team recently completed a project which highlights the work of Cardiff and Vale University Health Board staff in collaboration with partner organisations and Welsh Government on the Wales and Africa Programme.
The Health Board has an ongoing commitment to support partnerships in sub-Saharan Africa by sharing skills, establishing positive and collaborative working relationships and helping to build stronger communities in Africa.
The projects that the Health Board supports are varied, and include building schools, providing midwifery training and other healthcare skills sharing, including the contribution of staff to Children’s Cancer service in Sierra Leone.
In support of the Wales for Africa Programme, a team of medical staff from the Health Board work alongside the Ola During Children’s Hospital in Freetown, Sierra Leone to support the care of children with cancer.
Through Cardiff & Vale Health Charity’s “In for a Penny” payroll giving scheme, money is raised to provide training for nurses, doctors and laboratory staff, which helps to improve the diagnosis and the safe delivery of treatment to these young patients and contribute to their chemotherapy and other costs of care. Many children are already being helped, but there is a long way to go.
To highlight the partnership working on the Wales for Africa programme, an exhibition showing some of the emotive images taken in sub-Saharan Africa will be displayed as an exhibition at the University Hospital of Wales. Paul Crompton and Carl Rogers, kindly contributed to the exhibition.
Paul Crompton – Paul began his career as a medical photographer at the University Hospital of Wales in 1977 and went on to become Head of Medical Illustration at the Health Board before retiring in 2016. Paul has been photographing the work of the charity, Mothers of Africa, since they first visited Zambia in 2012. In his retirement he continues to document their achievements, creating powerful digital stories that describe some of the challenges faced by women and girls in rural Africa.
Carl Rogers – Carl has been working for the Health Board for 20 years as a videographer. In 2018 he visited Nsobe Community School in rural Zambia on behalf of Teacher Aid to document the success story of the school.
This exhibition documenting the Health Boards links with sub-Saharan Africa has been funded by the Arts for Health and Wellbeing Programme through Cardiff & Vale Health Charity, along with a generous donation from Amazon UK.
To join the “In for a Penny” Scheme and find out more please visit: www.healthcharity.wales or email sue.dickson-davies2@wales.nhs.uk