A.P.E.X. Events Presents Sonia Aboagye
Published: February 15, 2021 | Author: Southern Utah University | Read Time: 3 minutes
A.P.E.X. Events is happy to welcome Sonia Aboagye. As
the Department Director at the University of Health and Allied Sciences in the Volta region of Ghana, Aboyage joins us to share her vision to change the face of provision for people with communication disabilities across Ghana and sub-Saharan Africa. Join A.P.E.X. Events in person or virtually on February 18 at 11:30 a.m. in the Great Hall of the Hunter Conference Center at Southern Utah University.
“Sonia’s life and story explore so many aspects of identity, self, and culture all within the landscape of Europe and Africa in our current times in medicine," said Dr. Lynn Vartan, director of A.P.E.X. Events. "It will be such an honor to learn from her.”
As a child of the 1980’s, Aboagye grew up in Wimbledon watching TV images of Band-Aid creator, Bob Geldof, flying Concord between mega Live Aid concerts in London and Philadelphia. Images of a young Madonna singing ‘Holiday’ and The Cars singing ‘Drive’ to raise money for Ethiopian famine relief, became imprints on her mind, that shaped her journey in life. While at university, Aboagye became a corporate and trust fundraiser, raising funds to send skilled volunteers overseas for 2-year programs – a variation of the Peace Corps. Later, she moved to raising funds for a neurological hospital and then a UK-wide charity for children with speech and language difficulties. One day, she realized that she wanted to shift from being a facilitator of good projects, to being more hands-on. This led her to retrain as a speech-language pathologist, with a view to one day also taking her skills to Africa to aid development.
Thirty years later, in 2018, Aboagye and her partner relocated to Ghana, West Africa, a country famous for its gold, cocoa, and for being the birthplace of the late United Nations Head, Kofi Annan. It is also infamously known for its historic slave trade, and Michelle Obama was moved to tears when she stood in front of ‘the door of no return’ at the slave fortress of Cape-Coast Castle during her family’s visit in 2009. Ghana, despite a population of nearly 30 million people, had just five speech-language pathologists in practice. Aboagye’s mission was to change that. She is now head of the Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences at the University of Health and Allied Health Sciences (UHAS), located in Ho, in the Volta region of Ghana. She and her faculty run Ghana’s first and only bachelor's degree program for training speech-language pathologists and audiologists. Over the next decade, they aim to change the face of provision for people with communication disabilities across Ghana and sub-Saharan Africa.
A.P.E.X. Events is SUU’s premier weekly lecture series, with speakers and presenters invited from all areas of the world. While on campus, guests are invited to interact with students and faculty in multiple ways, with opportunities to connect and network in vast areas of scholarship. All A.P.E.X. events are free and open to the public.
This semester, A.P.E.X. Event presentations will also be streamed live via Zoom. Join the event virtually at suu-edu.zoom.us/j/95861182001?pwd=U2NpZnhNR1NDMGtndWt0RVNSNEJLZz09.
Tags: APEX