LWABANYA I. Marx, MD, MHL
Executive Director
 
Born in DR Congo, Dr. Marx hoped for a better future. But that hope did not last longer. When he was 13 (1996) the war broke out, himself and six of his siblings were forced to leave the Congo and flee to Tanzania for their own safety. In the refugee Camp his father served as a Community Health Worker team leader. When he was 15, one afternoon, his father was complaining to her mother about poor maternal and infant health outcome due to the scarcity of qualified medical personnel, and looked into his father’s eyes and how he felt powerless to change the situation, he wanted to challenge the statuquo, he decided to become a doctor to take care of his people.

As a refugee young boy he had no opportunity to study medicine in the refugee Camp. he decided to take risk and go back to his home country (Congo), despite his father’s opposition fearing for son’s safety back home, his father finally accepted to support him, after graduating from medicine in Bukavu, he joined the Hope Africa University Clinic in Burundi.

While serving at Hope Africa University, the Van Norman Clinic had a high birth rate but could not provide neonatal care, Dr. Marx started looking for opportunity to improve that situation. He joined an Executive Master in Healthcare Leadership at Brown University, Providence, US, during his program he developed an online training for neonatal care nurses, equipped the NICU with essential equipment and established a peer-mentoring program for at-risk mothers, an effort that was recognized by the Brown University with the Master’s award for professional excellence 2017.

After visiting his home country, he realized that maternal and infant care was poor, he decided in 2018 to move back to his home country and joined the Nundu Deaconess Hospital, as the medical director, he duplicated the Neonatal project, he equipped the hospital, trained the staff, but still it could not address the gap of the knowledge in the community, the hospital established the patient care funds but could not prevent poor health outcome related to the poverty, late decision due to low education of mothers, unhealthy behavior, poor nutrition habits, etc, a number of limitation that inspired him to co-found JALI AFYA nonprofit, to address health issues from its roots and prevent unnecessary suffering  and death, by focusing their intervention on improving the socio-determinants of health at the community.