Official launch of Pesinet’s activities in District III of Bamako chaired by the Malian Health Minister

On January 9th 2010, representatives of various organizations working on  healthcare and development in Mali, executives from local healthcare structures, elected members, representatives of the local district and families living in the area gathered in the healthcare center’s courtyard for the official launch of Pesinet’s activities in the district III of Bamako. The ceremony was chaired by the Malian Health Minister, Mr. Oumar Ibrahima Touré.

The Mayor responsible for Healthcare in District III, Mrs Djire Mariam Diallo, opened the ceremony with a welcome address during which she expressed her satisfaction that the District III had been selected as pilot zone for the development of an innovative project using Information and Communication Technologies to improve healthcare.

The representative of the Pesinet Association in Mali, Antoine de Clerck, then took the floor to present the founding principles of the Pesinet service, its objectives and its functionning. Two films in French and Bambara, were shown to explain Pesinet service to the audience. Ms. Coulibaly testified about her expérience as a Pesinet subscriber. She has been subscribing to the service for 1 year to follow-up on the health status of her child Aboubacar.

Antoine de Clerck warmly thanked all project stakeholders and in particular the partners of the association in France – Antropia, the Alcatel-Lucent Foundation, the BNP Paribas Foundation and Medicament Export – and in Mali – the Ministry of Health and its e-health agency, the Regional Health Department, the healthcare center in District III, the Orange Mali Foundation, the BNP Paribas subsidiary in mali, BICIM, and the Malian communicaiton agency DFA Communication.

The doctor responsible for managing the Health Center in District III, Mrs. N’Diaye Hawa Thiam, and the representative of the Pesinet association in Mali then officially signed the agreement, which formalizes the commitments of the association and the health center in the joint implementation of Pesinet’s health monitoring program for children.

Mrs. Diawara Aminata Kamian, Managing Director of the Orange Mali Foundation, expressed her pride to support the Pesinet Association. She reminded that the foundation had been a founding partner of the project in Mali. “Indeed, the project meets the objective of the Orange Mali Foundation, which is to implement sustainable actions that will bring lasting structural change for a maximum number of people.

Mr. Daouda Fall, Associate Director of DFA Communication then took the floor to explain the why his company had chosen to support the Pesinet Association. The communications agency offered to organized the ceremony and created for free communications materials for the event.

The Minister of Health closed the ceremony with a supportive speech. He stressed that Pesinet was “an appropriate response to child healthcare problems, since it allowed to” raise families’ awareness of the concept of medical follow-up. ” The Minister said that Pesinet is a” major innovation “. “As a paid service very affordable, it helps to educate families about prevention”, he added. Read the speech of the Malian Health Minister.

The ceremony was successful in publicizing the program Pesinet among people and public institutions gathered on the occasion. Many Pesinet subscribers were present and played as ambassadors and the service among other families in the neighborhood. The event was broadcasted on the National News, and also relayed in the local press. To read some articles published, see the press review for January 2010.

Watch the report broadcasted on national TV (in French only).