REPORT OCTOBER 2016

This paper was written to share experiences from collaboration
between Baylor College of Medicine (US), Baylor Children’s Clinics
(Uganda and Bostwana), Makerere University College of Health
Sciences and University of Bostwana all under the umbrella of the
Collaborative African Genomics Network (CafGEN). CafGEN worked
together with H3Africa initiative collaboration between National
Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Wellcome Trust. The two came
together to study disease progression in children. For example, is
there a genetic explanation for why some children born with HIV
live longer than others?
In order to involve the community and ensure sensitization, they
came up with a comic series called the Genome Adventures. These
series were developed to address issues of genes, genomics and
biomedical science specifically targeting adolescents and youth in
the communities.
This was a great example of inter-professional collaboration
because to get to the final product, input had to be made by
scientists, researchers, information professionals, comic
illustrators, media, writers as well as content developers for
adolescent and youth information materials.
The Comic series, with 4 volumes, were published and translated
into major languages spoken on the African continent that is
Arabic, French, Hausa, Luganda, Portuguese, Setswana and
Swahili. So far launches have been done in Bostwana, Tanzania
and Uganda and feedback on their use is being integrated.
Their future plans include creating a TV series while incorporating
feedback from the comic series already printed.
Comments and Questions
1. If the Community Advisory Boards were from Botswana
and Uganda, would their ideas resonate with different
cultural backgrounds? Consultations were done in all the
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