Nairobi, Kenya, 28 July 2009 – His Highness the Aga Khan, accompanied by his daughter Princess Zahra, reviewed progress on various projects of the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), including the US$ 50 million Heart and Cancer Centre of the Aga Khan University Hospital in Nairobi and the Aga Khan Academy's residential campus and the Aga Khan Hospital (both in Mombasa).

The Aga Khan visited the Aga Khan Hospital in Mombasa where he toured some of the Hospital’s diagnostic services and specialist clinics. The Hospital is part of the Aga Khan Health Services (AKHS) with links to the Aga Khan University Hospitals in Nairobi and Karachi. It has grown in recent years, expanding its services and upgrading its facilities.

The Aga Khan also visited the Aga Khan Academy in Mombasa to view developments on the construction of its new residential campus, and speak with faculty members, dorm parents and students about their experiences. The Academy, which opened in 2003, is the first of a network of Academies to be established across the developing world and features a curriculum based on the International Baccalaureate Programme. Combined with exceptional facilities, and a pluralistic, multicultural learning community, the Academies challenge exceptional students of all backgrounds to fulfill their destinies as learners and leaders in their communities and across the globe.

In Nairobi, His Highness and Princess Zahra visited the construction site of the US$ 50 million Heart and Cancer Centre of the Aga Khan University Hospital (Nairobi), which is expected to be completed next year. The Centre will be the first in the region to provide high quality cardiac and oncology care to patients using state-of-the-art technology and equipment, and will be a part of the Aga Khan University’s Faculty of Health Sciences, East Africa’s first premier private medical school. During the visit, they reviewed plans and saw the proposed area for radiation therapy, and also visited the Hospital’s newly renovated Paediatric Unit.

During the visit, the Aga Khan also met His Excellency President Mwai Kibaki and the Rt. Hon. Prime Minister Raila Odinga. He will next travel to Tanzania and then to Zanzibar, where he will officially inaugurate Forodhani Park in Historic Stone Town, which has undergone a $2.4 million restoration by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC).

For further information please contact:

Semin Abdulla
Senior Communications Officer
Secretariat of His Highness the Aga Khan
[email protected]
Tel: + 254 750 530 053

Wanjiru Mwangi-Ruhanga
Communications Officer
Aga Khan Development Network (Kenya)
[email protected]
Tel: + 254 735 704142

NOTE

The Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) is a group of nine international development agencies and institutions which implement programmes in rural development, education, health, culture, microfinance and business. The network, led by its founder, His Highness the Aga Khan, is dedicated to improving living conditions and opportunities for the poor, without regard to their faith, origin or gender. The AKDN agencies are private and non-denominational, working in some thirty countries, mainly in Asia and Africa.