Mr. Oduro is the Founder and President of Africa Policy Initiative for Sustainable Development in Oil and Mineral Producing Regions.
A very passionate youth, he leads the Leadership and Productivity Executive Development Institute and Central Missions Account-Africa.
In March, 2007 Prince Williams Oduro started a charity network, known as African Rights Initiative International with the mandate of promoting Human Dignity and Sustainable Livelihood.
His vision is to build the world’s largest African humanitarian network (with a strong local base) viable for providing result oriented services to the people of Africa.
He was in March 2013 recognized by Students for the Advancement of Global Entrepreneurship (SAGE-GHANA) for an AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE to appreciation his high standard of excellence for youth development in the country.
Doctors in the Gap Mission to the Dwarf
Island-Teams travel 4 and half hours before reaching some of the island communities supporting 255 poor communities over 50, 000 people live on the Island and many
of them had never seen a nurse or doctor before until Doctors in the Gap started working there.
Section of the over 100 medical volunteers serving on the island bringing hope and healing
Cargo Carrying Doctors in the Gap Medical and Relief Items to the Field.No place is too far for the Doctors in the Gap Children had little chance of surviving their 5th year before Doctors in the Gap started working there Malaria used to kill hundreds of these children-lack of access to essential drugs was a great challenge Five-year old child suffering from malnutrition on the Dwarf Island-Malnutrition leaves irreparable damage even if they survived. For thousands of children that was their story Doctors in the Gap senior official helped Beauty breastfeed her child for the first time after birth on the Island
From the Dwarf IslandBreaking Through Cultural and Systemic Barriers to Bring Change
“For me, the joy and appreciation expressed by these beautiful people on the Island after being served with dignity was fulfilling. Doctors in the Gap, thank you for without you, that woman at Nyakuikope wouldn’t have heard the cry and call of her baby for the first time, for
without you; the small girl at Kokrobuta wouldn’t have heard voices of her relatives, friends and teacher for the first time. I say, thank you for the opportunity to serve. It’san honour. Blessed be God.”
Francis, Doctors in the Gap
ENT Team
Nominee
• What is your motivation?
My motivation for the past 10years of fully responding to the call of service to God and
Country has been the thousands of people who could not have survived the next
minute, hour, day or week without my intervention. When I close my eyes, I reflect the
warm embrace and broad smiles I receive from them when I am on the field. Just a life
lost due to preventable cause is so huge a burden for me. Left alone when thousands
of innocent people; especially, children and women die daily due to pregnancy and
childbirth, malaria, malnutrition and snake bite. The three year old boy who died in my
arms in Kalba due to malnutrition because it was too late for my medical team to save
him tells me that if my team had been there even a week earlier, that innocent boy
would have been saved like hundreds saved now. I want to spend the rest of my life
fighting for the needs of these most vulnerable in our society.
Nominee
• Explain your project
i. In simple ways Doctors in the Gap project is explained in four key terms; Direct Clinical and Surgical Services, Resourcing, Capacity Building and Community Health Awareness Promotion
ii. Doctors in the Gap is one of the first projects by my organization, African Rights Initiative International. The project was established in 2008 to address the primary and critical health needs of millions of people in under-served communities in Ghana and Africa focusing on strong local mobilization to ensure high level of sustainability.
iii. With over 1,000 volunteers raised globally, Doctors in the Gap skilled physicians, anaesthetists, nurses, midwives,logisticians, lab technologists, optometrists, Ophthalmologists, disease control experts, epidemiologists and other
medical and non-medical professionals serve in harsh conditions to deliver lifesaving medical care and relief to people living in some of the most remote, impoverished and forgotten villages in our world.
iv. Doctors in the Gap uses the integrated development solution to healthcare delivery. Our approach takes into account the social, cultural, economic, environmental and geographic realities that contribute to the state of wellbeing of the people we serve
v. Reaching over 255 rural poor communities every year, Doctors in the Gap envisions a world in which quality healthcare is accessible to all irrespective of background, race, sex and other characteristics unrelated to the worth of an individual Nominee
v. From a humble beginning as a student group in 2008, Doctors in the Gap is now at the forefront;mobilizing the largest medical volunteer base in Africa, improving the quality and accessibility of healthcare and developing communities’ own response system through local and international partnerships and self-help initiatives.
vi. 5 Areas of the Doctors in the Gap Challenge;
1. Reducing deaths resulting from pregnancy and childbirth
2. Reducing death resulting from nutritional health and malaria.
3. Developing communities’ own response system to healthcare delivery
4. Building Healthcare infrastructure
5. Building the capacity and resourcing healthcare workers and community health volunteers
to meet the growing demands of quality healthcare delivery
Nominee
• How do you fund the project?
• individual and corporate Donations, partnerships, inter-agency collaboration, fundraising activities
• How much impact has your project had?
i. Over 300,000 people served since 2008
ii. Primary Healthcare access for at least 50,000 Patients annually
iii. Over 200 communities taking their own initiatives and setting their own health
goals to complement external efforts to achieve the expected results.
iv. Several health facilities helped to continue quality healthcare delivery across the
country.
• What are your major achievements?
1. Over 300, 000 people served since 2008
2. Over 1,000 medical volunteers raised globally whose services are 100% voluntary and
deliver lifesaving medical care to people in remote, impoverished and forgotten
communities in Ghana.
3. 255 rural poor communities are served annually covering
4. Primary healthcare for over 50, 000 people every year.
5. Child malnutrition has been reduced by 80% since Doctors in the Gap started working on
the Dwarf Island
6. Maternal mortality has been reduced to the barest minimum. Before the Doctors in the
Gap started working on the Dwarf Island, there was no midwife serving the reproductive
needs of thousands of women on the island. Now with the Doctors in the Gap, pregnant
women can access free antenatal clinic and have access to free gynaecological support as
when the need is.
7. Millions of Cedis worth of hospital supplies (consumables, hospital bed etc)have
been mobilized and sent to support quality healthcare delivery in; Korle Bu
Teaching Hospital ICU, Donkorkrom Presby Hospital, Tema Polyclinic, Tema General
Hospital, Kalba Sub-District in Northern Ghana, Dwarf Island in Afram Plains,
Eastern Region etc
8. The Intensive Care Unit at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital can now boast of a wellfurnished waiting area, probably the best in Korle Bu, and two well resourced
offices for the matron and the Head of the ICU.
9. Several children have received all expenses paid surgery ranging from; tumors,
hole in heart, water in the brain, just to mention a few Kwaku Damaa before contact with us Kwaku after a month of treatment Prince with Ignatious Quartey at Korle Bu
10. 15 acres of land has been acquired to build an international mission hospital which will serve as a reference point for all Doctors in the Gap surgical procedures in Ghana and beyond. We have been able to secure partnership with Agape Samaritan International, USA
which has agreed to resource the hospital fully for free once it’s built.
11. Through Prince’s outstanding leadership, the University at Buffalo( Official State University of New York) School of Management has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)
with Doctors in the Gap and ARII to establish a Global Centre for Leadership and Social Innovation in Ghana to ensure social sector productivity, especially in the health sector. This is their first out of America and Europe partnership. A team of 28 health experts,professors and surgeons are visiting Ghana between January 5th to16th January 2018 to understudy Prince’s approach to healthcare delivery in Ghana and Africa.
12. Prince has built an organization of international repute and haswon the Special Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council.
13. A very passionate young leader and social entrepreneur, Prince is considered as one of the young great Africa rising leaders of histime with a heart of service as he recently made it to the best sixyoung Africans nominated for the Eisenhower Fellowship held inPhiladelphia, USA out of the total of 83 applicants from Africa.
14. Just this September, 2017 Prince emerged the overall winner ofthe Non-Profit and Humanitarian Category of the Forty Under 40Award (wining The Outstanding Humanitarian Award).
15. 155 community health volunteers have been trained and equipped tooffer continuous support to the 5 community health officers who serve theentire Island.
16. All the seven CHPS compounds on the Island continue to receive medicalsupplies from the Doctors in the Gap
17. The Dwarf Island Challenge. In the next five years Prince has launched acampaign to build seven CHIP compounds; each having a separate twobedroom solar powered simple house health officers and volunteers for theIsland communities.
18. Another great achievement is about the excellent system he has built as ayoung man; transparent and accountable with strong leadership Board• What challenges have you faced• Exploitation from state agencies, ministriesand community leaders• Funding. The burden is so huge butinadequate funding sometimes impedes theflow of work• Unhealthy cultural practices• How do you feel when you see the impact yourwork has had?It gives me the kind of satisfaction that no money can buy. I remember travelling two andhalf hours on the Volta Lake with my emergency team to save a woman and her twotwin daughters. The woman had given birth and bleeding profusely for hours. There wasno chance of survival in the hands of traditional birth attendants. When our work wasdone, joy returned to the village Charity lying in wait for help on a Dwarf Prince and his emergency paramedicstravelling 2 and half hours to attend to her. Island Community Doctors in the Gap Nurse with the twins Prince with Charity•
Do you have any plans for the future?My plan is to stay on the Dwarf Island for the next five years and work to build thehealthcare system on the island; using integrated development solutions tohealthcare delivery. My approach takes into account the social, cultural, economic,environmental and geographic realities that contribute to the state of wellbeing ofthe people I serveThousands get ready for the support A One Month Old Baby with worms in the Earthey have been denied with foryears.
• Why did you nominate thenominee?Prince Williams Oduro is doingan amazing work that onlyfew young people of his ageand in our time, will everdare. He is serving thousandsin some of the remotestplaces in our world, in lifethreatening situations. Hedeserves to be acknowledgedand supported by the MTNHeroes of ChangeNominator- Most Rev. Dr. KwesiAboagye- Mensah• Why do you think he deserves help?Prince for the past 10 years has given himself to the services ofhumanity, especially, children and families in resource poorplaces in Ghana and beyond without expectation ofremuneration and he wants to do it the rest of his life. Helpinghim will ensure that he can reach out to hundreds ofthousands more annually.
• How do you feel when you see your nominee atwork?It’s so inspiring to see his unquenchable and infectious passion to see societydeveloped. He gives me hope that all is not lost yet. A great motivation toyoung people across Ghana and Africa that our country and continent is stillworth dying for. I am personally involved in his works.•How has his work impacted you directly?I am personally involved and I am making my own humble contribution to oursociety.•What reputation does he have in the community?From the over 255 communities where he serves to the national level and beyond,Prince Oduro Williams has proven his worth as a young man with great reputation andheart of service and devotion to society who has won great admirations from allpeople. This is evident when two chiefs donated two cows to support his work in 2016and 2017.
Prince has built an organization of international repute and with Special ConsultativeStatus with the United Nations Economic and Social Council.Prince recently made it to the best six young Africans nominated for theEisenhower Fellowship held in Philadelphia, USA out of the total of 83applicants from Africa.Just this September, 2017 Prince emerged the overall winner of the NonProfit and Humanitarian Category of the Forty Under 40 Award (wining TheOutstanding Humanitarian Award).On 13th March, 2012, Prince’s works was recognized with an AWARD FOREXCELLENCE by Students for the Advancement of Global Entrepreneurship(SAGE-GHANA) in recognition for his high standard of excellence for youthdevelopment in Ghana.• What are your viewsabout the nominee?I never knew him at first, but they camein a team, and he was the teamleader. The very first time theycame, he educated us on teenagepregnancy and other healthproblems that were affecting us.Since then I paid critical attentionabout him and realised he was ahealth worker who is on a missionof change.Community Leader – Togbe Francis Avutugah II(Chief of Avukofe, Dwarf Island)
How has his work impacted the society?He has actually helped us curb the practice of teenage pregnancy and reducedmortality deaths in the community with his team of health workers. Does he deserve to be rewarded?He deserves any push in the form of reward, that you have for him. Looking atthis Island, there are sister communities that also need our help. There isno electricity on the Dwarf Island, no water to drink and no propereducation. Life here is difficult and we need the help Prince is offering usmore and more so if there is any help you have kindly don’t hesitate.
• What was your life like before andafter the nominee’s intervention?In this village we deliver babies withoutany medical assistance. When I wasabout to deliver I had complicationswhich was leading to death and bythen I was 14 years old. If not for thetimely intervention of Prince and histeam, I would have lost my life twoyears ago.Beneficiary- Beauty Ayigba. What was your life like before and afterthe nominee’s intervention?On the day of my delivery I had birthcomplications, not knowing I had twins.When I was delivering I was bledexcessively and was weak. By the timethey crossed the lake with me to the maintown, Donkorkrom, I would have lost mylife on the lake.
At that very moment Prince and his teamarrived and saved my life. When Idelivered too, my boy was suffering frommalnutrition, so one of the nurses tookcustody of him for three days in her tent,gave him all the medical assistance heneeded to survive, and today myself andmy twins and healthy.Beneficiary- Rebecca Zafoye
