April 21, 2008

Prince Cedza Dlamini, U.N. youth spokesman for Millennium Development Goals, to visit Purdue

Prince Cedza Dlamini
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Dlamini, founder of the Ubuntu Institute for Young Social Entrepreneurs, will give a lecture and presentation from 4-6 p.m. Thursday (April 24) in Stewart Center, Room 306. As spokesman for the U.N.'s Millennium Development Goals, Dlamini is working with international leaders on an eight-point strategy to eradicate poverty, hunger and disease in Africa within the next two decades.

"Purdue faculty are eager for their students to put the skills they learn in the classroom to use in South Africa and to learn from the South Africans as well," said Marne Helgesen, who coordinates Purdue's service-learning efforts as Center for Instructional Excellence director.

"More than 150 classes at Purdue incorporate service-learning for projects in the Lafayette-West Lafayette community, the state of Indiana and nationally. Our next step is to enhance our global outreach through service-learning study abroad experiences so that our students obtain a heightened sense of world citizenship through immersion in other cultures."

During his three-day visit, Dlamini also will tour research laboratories in Discovery Park and meet with Purdue students, administrators, and faculty in science, nursing, veterinary medicine, agriculture, communications, psychology and hospitality, tourism and management.

He will hear a presentation about the Cytometry for Life project at Discovery Park's Bindley Bioscience Center. A Purdue team led by J. Paul Robinson, a professor of veterinary medicine and biomedical engineering, is developing a low-cost device for use in Africa and other countries to improve the early diagnosis of the AIDS virus.

"Prince Dlamini's vision is to create a unified global network of empowered young leaders who can work collectively to address current world problems, such as HIV/AIDS, poverty and hunger, environmental decay and illiteracy," Robinson said. "This visit is the first step toward potential research collaborations with Prince Dlamini on the Cytometry for Life project and other global health initiatives at Purdue."

Dlamini, who is the grandson of former South African President Nelson Mandela, has served as a youth activist for the Millennium Development Goals since 2004. In that role, he encourages youth to get involved in the fight against poverty, HIV/AIDS, and illiteracy.

In 2003, he also was appointed co-chairman for the World Youth Peace Summit in Africa, which aims to assemble youth leaders from across the globe to further this goal.

"Africa is a young continent, with more than 60 percent of its population under the age of 35 years old," Robinson said. "Youth face a myriad of problems such as HIV/AIDS, high unemployment rates, poverty and gender inequality, which threaten their livelihoods and therefore hinder their capacity to make lasting change in their communities."

Leaders from Purdue's Discovery Park joined a University of Notre Dame team on Sept. 25 in New York City to outline research efforts in global health at a forum during the opening of the 62nd session of the United Nations General Assembly.

About 100 people attended the U.N. forum, including nonprofit agencies working in global health, eight delegates representing official missions to the U.N., and agencies such as UNESCO, UNAIDS, the World Health Organization and the United Nations Development Programme.

That followed a March 2007 trip by Robinson and his team to speak with Nigerian officials and health-care professionals in Africa. The team introduced new, low-cost technology for affordable, widespread medical testing for millions of AIDS victims on that continent.

Writers: Phillip Fiorini, (765) 496-3133, pfiorini@purdue.edu

Marydell Forbes, (765) 496-7704, mforbes@purdue.edu

Sources: Marne Helgesen, (765) 496-6424, helgesen@purdue.edu

                  J. Paul Robinson, (765) 494-0757, jpr@flowcyt.cyto.purdue.edu

Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; purduenews@purdue.edu

Note to Journalists: Dlamini is pronounced (La-mee-nee). Journalists who want to interview Dlamini or photograph him while he is visiting campus or touring research laboratories at Purdue can arrange in advance by contacting Phillip Fiorini, pfiorini@purdue.edu, (765) 496-3133.

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