Higher Education South Africa (HESA)’s Programme Director for the Higher Education HIV and AIDS (HEAIDS) programme, Dr Ramneek Ahluwalia, will deliver a keynote address at the University of Johannesburg’s (UJ) annual HIV and AIDS Colloquium on Wednesday, 18 September 2013. The event will be held at UJ’s School of Tourism and Hospitality on the Auckland Park Bunting Road Campus.
Dr Ahluwalia’s address will focus on The Role of South African Higher Education Institutions towards mitigating HIV and AIDS, STIs and TB within our National response.
According to Ms Teolene Foster, Head: Institutional Office for HIV and AIDS (IOHA) at UJ, the Colloquium, an annual affair at UJ since 2010, is a platform that provides space for academics and support services to share and dialogue around pertinent HIV/AIDS-related issues that would ultimately inform practices. The Colloquium also sets a stage for sharing best practices within the university, in the context of HIV and AIDS education, research, prevention and mitigation programmes available for students and the university workforce.
This year’s event will see UJ’s Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture (FADA) exhibiting students’ expressions over HIV & AIDS through works of art, design and architecture. The annual Colloquium brings together students, peer educator groups; teacher educator groups, academics and researchers involved in the university’s HIV & AIDs programme as well as support staff. Faculty members and representatives from the university’s Human Resources department will also be attending.
About Dr Ramneek Ahluwalia
Dr Ramneek Ahluwalia is a Physician with an enormous clinical and allied health care management experience. He obtained his MBChB following which he completed his post graduate training in Internal Medicine (DNB). He is a registered Medical Practitioner with the three National Medical Councils of India, Mauritius and South Africa. To augment his management experience, he has also completed his MBA with a gold medal from University of Cape Town, Graduate School of Business.
Dr Ahluwalia holds multi cultural work experience in four diverse countries: India, Germany, Mauritius and South Africa. He has been heading various health programmes within the countries mentioned above and has amassed diverse experience handling projects in both developed and the developing world. He is the current Programme Director and Head: Higher Education HIV/AIDS Programme (HEAIDS) which is an initiative of the Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) and is undertaken by HESA, which represents all of South Africa’s 23 public universities. He is also the head of Higher education civil society sector within the South African National AIDS Council (SANAC).
Dr Ahluwalia also serves on boards of various governmental and nongovernmental strategic advisory groups. He has elaborative experience working with donor funded organisations and co-ordinating Public-private partnerships. For example, he is currently chairing South Africa’s largest Public-Private partnership called the First things First which is a partnership between South African Government Departments of Health, Higher Education & Training, 14 Pharmaceutical Companies, USAID/PEPFAR and South African National AIDS Council (SANAC).