Rising Stars- The Hillman Scholars in East Africa

By Josephine De Frietas

Supporting rising stars and future leaders in healthcare is a powerful way to impact long term health outcomes  around the world. The Hillman Fund provides awards and support for healthcare students and professionals who demonstrate exceptional potential leadership skills. Every year, we provide research awards for top medical students in Kenya. We support the research projects of 2 young physicians in Uganda and we pay the tuition fees for 2 university students as Hillman Scholars. Our researcher last year studied Malnutrition in Rural Uganda, and the effectiveness of Ebola preparedness training in rural communities.

Our youngest  Hillman Scholar is an exceptional nursing student called Dorcus Nanvuma. She has consistently come top of her class and will be completing her training in 2018 .  This is what she wrote to us on her first week in class.  She made a promise that she has kept:

“I can now see light in my future. We have started classes and in the first lesson, I was thinking: “it is me seated here OR am I dreaming?”. You know I used to dream a lot about school only to wake up and find my self in bed, but in this case, it was true! I again vow never to disappoint you and all my sponsors. I am going to be a good student. I am going to read as I have never read before.” 

Our first Hillman Scholar, Dr. Vincent, has completed  his Masters Degree in Family Practice at Makerere and has taking over the management of their rural training clinic. He was nominated to us by his colleagues as a rising star in Family Medicine in Uganda. The next graduate from Family medicine will complete his degree in 2018

We are very proud of all our wonderful Hillman Scholars and we know they are truly rising stars and will make a difference to healthcare in Africa. If you would like to support rising stars in healthcare, please consider making a donation by clicking on the link below and selecting Hillman Fund at the top.