December 03, 2010
John Donnelly
This is the second in a series of interviews with participants at the Ministerial Leadership Initiative for Global Health’s Learning Collaborative Forum in Addis Ababa on motivation – what motivates them and how do they motivate others. Bocar Mamadou Daff, 51, is the director of reproductive health in Senegal’s Ministry of Health and Prevention:
Q: What motivates you?
A: That starts with my background. I come from a rural area and there were many health problems there. So people in my community where I grew up weren’t even aware of modern medicine. They were using all traditional medicine they could find and when it wouldn’t work, they would go very far in search of modern medicine.
I had a sister who was very, very sick for 15 days and she was yellow in color. People were saying this was caused by the devil. I asked my teacher what was wrong, and he said, `You need to take her to a health post.’ (He paused, and his eyes began to well with tears.) I didn’t know what to do.
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