Rest in Peace :(

Rev. Angelo D'Agostino; founded AIDS orphanage in Kenya

By Associated Press | November 21, 2006

NAIROBI, Kenya -- The Rev. Angelo D'Agostino trained in urology at Tufts New England Medical Center, served in the Air Force as a surgeon, and became the first Catholic priest to be a psychiatrist specializing in psychoanalysis. But his legacy, his colleagues say, was built in a rented home in an African suburb.

Father D'Agostino, who opened one of the first orphanages for HIV-positive children in Kenya and fought to make AIDS drugs affordable to the poor, died yesterday of a heart attack. He was 80.

Father D'Agostino had been hospitalized for a week with abdominal pain and died after surgery, said Sister Mary Owens, who has worked at the Nyumbani Orphanage since it opened in 1992, just outside Kenya's capital of Nairobi.

"He was very inspiring; he always pushed you beyond your comfort zones," Owens told the Associated Press. "He was very much a man of compassion. He was mirroring the compassion of God. He reached out to everybody."

Father D'Agostino -- known at the orphanage as "Father Dag" -- opened Nyumbani with just three HIV-positive children.

"They were babies, abandoned in hospital," Owens said. "It was a day of tremendous joy when we finally welcomed the first three children."

With aid from the Jesuits and from fund-raising trips he made back in New England, Father D'Agostino expanded the home into a compound that cares for scores of children. Next week, the compound will become part of a community with the opening of Nyumbani Village, for AIDS orphans who were taken in by a grandparent or other caregiver. The village will help its occupants "sustain themselves through agriculture, poultry, dairy projects as well as handicrafts and external services," according to its website.

Nyumbani is the Swahili word for "home."

Two million of Kenya's 33 million people have HIV, although the number of new infections has been declining. In recent years, Father D'Agostino pushed for cheaper AIDS drugs and sued five primary schools to force them to admit HIV-positive children.

"Once they [the schools] find the child is from Nyumbani, they find some sort of excuse like they're too full, they don't have any room or whatever," Father D'Agostino told the Associated Press in 2004.

Angelo D'Agostino grew up in Providence, one of six children of Italian immigrants. His father, a construction worker, professed an antagonism toward religion. Despite this, two of the D'Agostino children became priests, another a Christian brother, and one a nun.

Father D'Agostino graduated from St. Michael's College in Vermont and Tufts University Medical School. During the Korean War, he joined the Air Force and worked in a military hospital near Washington.

His calling for the priesthood began with a retreat led by a Jesuit priest, Father D'Agostino had said. "I finally realized there was more to life than cutting up, and sewing up, people," he told the Washington Post.

After his discharge from the Air Force in 1955, Father D'Agostino joined a Jesuit center in Pennsylvania that was dedicated to religious meditation and study and tending a farm. No modern technology or conveniences or communications were permitted; conversation was in Latin.

Those years, he told the Post, were "probably two of the happiest years of my life."

Intent on becoming a medical missionary, Father D'Agostino learned his superiors had other plans.

"The Jesuits were always in the forefront of intellectual battles, and at the time there was a war going on between Catholicism and psychiatry," Father D'Agostino said. "The novice master thought maybe with my background in medicine I could talk to both sides. As a psychiatrist, I might be able to present to psychiatrists the validity of religious belief."

He obtained a residency in psychiatry at Georgetown University and trained at the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute.

He was ordained in 1966.

In addition to offering services at his psychiatric practice in Washington, he established the Center for Religion and Psychiatry at George Washington University. He directed the center until 1980, when he joined the Jesuit Refugee Service and was sent to Thailand to set up a camp for refugees. The following year, he went to Kenya to cooordinate the refugee work of Jesuit priests in several countries and to establish an institute on psychiatry and religion.

The East African Standard (Nairobi)

November 2, 2006
Posted to the web November 3, 2006

Elizabeth Mwai
Nairobi

Two more suspected polio cases have been reported at the Dadaab refugee camp in Garissa District.

This comes as the Government launched a Sh18 million campaign against the disease in 28 districts.

The Director of Medical Services, Dr James Nyikal, said on Thursday two other campaigns estimated at Sh360 million would be carried out next year.

He said a surveillance team had detected symptoms of paralysis in two children at the cam. Last month, another suspected polio case, the first in 22 years, was reported in a three-year-old girl at the camp.

Nyikal said the children had been isolated and their samples taken to South Africa and the Kenya Medical Research Institute for analysis.

"We are treating any case of paralysis as polio and we appeal to parents who see their children develop weak limbs to take them to the nearest health centre for testing," he said.

Speaking to The Standard at the Ministry of Health headquarters, Nyikal said the campaign, sponsored by World Health Organisation (WHO) and United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef), targets 250,000 children aged below five.

Round one will take place between November 4 and 8 in Garissa, Wajir, Mandera and Moyale at Government and mission health facilities.

Tana River, Mwingi, Turkana, Thika, Meru, Isiolo and Kwale will be covered between December 2 and 6. Free vaccination against polio will also be done in Marsabit, Malindi, Tharaka, Lamu, Mombasa and Nairobi on the same dates.

Nyikal said vaccine worth Sh1 billion would be used in the campaigns. The second campaign, to be done in January, will target 5.5 million children.

WHO Director Mr David Okello raised concern over the outbreak of polio, saying Kenya had been recognised as a success story in eradicating the disease.

He said a technical team to prevent polio from spreading to other parts has been put in place, and urged donors to assist in the campaign.

"Polio is preventable and we cannot sit back We must stop it. We have the vaccines and technical knowledge, but we need logistical help," he said.

Unicef Kenya representative, Mr Heimo Laakkonen, said the organisation would fund the fourth round of the Horn of Africa anti-polio programme to the tune of Sh18.2 million. Laakkonen urged the Government to strengthen routine vaccinations to push up coverage to more than 80 per cent.

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The reason the United States should be careful in their marginalization of Africa:

Kenya to launch major tourism marketing drive in China


Kenya is set to launch a major tourism promotion drive to target Chinese tourists as well as leaders attending the China-Africa summit opening in Beijing later this week, tourism officials have said.

Kenyan tourism marketing agents said Tuesday the campaign to showcase the country as a tourist destination will be done through a variety of media advertisement, including billboards, roadshows and would also include the use of specialized teams of travel agents.

"We are launching a major marketing campaign in China later this week. China is a big market in Asia. We have established our presence there," Kenya Tourism Board Managing Director Dr. Ongong' a Achieng told Xinhua after the release of the third quarter report.

"We signed Approved Destination Status for outbound Chinese tourist groups in 2004 and we have translate this into increased marketing of tourism in China," he said.

He said a cast of 50 Chinese carried out a production shoot of TV soap opera "The Last Breakthrough," and the producers are planning to air the series to 100 million southern Chinese audiences, publicizing Kenyan culture and tourist attractions.

"The media advertisements will hit east Asian television screens in the next two to three days," said Achieng.

Achieng said the consistent marketing campaigns in China has seen increased number of Chinese tourists coming into the country since 2004, when the East African nation was granted the preferred tourist destination status.

Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki has announced that he would travel to China on Wednesday to attend the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation Summit. Some 40 African leaders are expected in the Chinese capital Beijing for the Summit.

The KTB chief said Kenya has established itself in China and the prospects of more trade with Beijing were looking brighter since the 2004 signing of the preferred tourist destination.
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