MUNDO: Training the developing world
Conceiving big training projects, from Kenya, Nicaragua and Mozambique to Vietnam, El Salvador and Uganda in a small room in Maastricht is all in a day’s work for MUNDO.
Founded in 1997, its mission is “to create an atmosphere where people can learn from each other through academic co-operation across the world”.
MUNDO (Maastricht University Centre for International Co-operation in Academic Development) has been sharing its knowledge and experience with different educational institutions, especially in developing countries.
In Vietnam, for example, MUNDO supports various medical schools by providing them with practical skills training.
“In many developing countries training emphasis is on the theory, as in Vietnam. The medical students lack the practical skills they need for their job,” said Han Aarts, executive director of MUNDO.
“Since 1996, at the University of Can Tho in Southern Vietnam we have developed, in co-operation, a programme in which students get a systematically expanded skills training from the first day until the end of their education. Before they graduate they master many complex skills like the diagnostic, therapeutic and communicative skills they all need as doctors.”
The programme turned out to be so successful MUNDO not only received a prize from the Vietnamese government but also gained the attention of other medical schools with which it is currently co-operating.
But why developing countries? MUNDO believes knowledge and the capacity to work with knowledge are essential tools for these countries to overcome the inequality resulting from globalisation.
“We are a public university richly endowed with resources. We have a certain responsibility to share them with the developing world,” said Mr Aarts.
Although MUNDO has been mainly focusing on medical education, the first Master’s Programme in Environmental Law has been developed at the Université de Bénin in West Africa.
Most of MUNDO’s activities are funded by the Dutch government.
However, the institute has carried out other projects funded by the EU and the World Bank.
“Although our funding is mainly external, we have contributions from the University of Maastricht as well,” adds Mr Aarts. “And what is more important is the continuous support of the UM that can keep us engaged to our projects in developing countries”.
Source: Crossroads print issue, March 2003
and i went...
