Dr Nizar Verjee awarded honorary doctorate from Oxford Brookes University

Dr Nizar Verjee
Doctor of the University (HonDUniv)
Year conferred: 2009

Nizar Verjee is a dental surgeon who has run a dental practice in Nairobi, Kenya, since 1969. However, this doesn’t begin to tell the story of his involvement in public health in Kenya. Amongst much other charitable activity he is deputy chairman of the international board of AMREF (the African Medical and Research Foundation), and has been deeply involved in the palliative care movement, chairing the Nairobi Hospice until last year.

Dr Nizar Verjee, a Kenyan, was awarded, on 10 September, 2009, an honorary doctorate from the Oxford Brookes University in recognition of ‘his commitment to the Nairobi Hospice, the facilitation of fund-raising and raising the awareness of the work of the Hospice within Kenya and the Region for more than ten years’.

Nizar has a long and distinguished service to the health and social care sector in Kenya. His family have been in Kenya for over 150 years, his grandfather Husein Suleman Verjee played an important role in Kenya’s anti-colonial struggle and was a great philanthropist.

With funding from the Aga Khan Foundation and several international agencies, Nizar set up two community based primary health care projects in the Kisumu and Kwale districts. As chair of the Aga Khan Health Service in Kenya, he led the development of 3 hospitals in Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu. He has been chair of the Aga Khan Council for Kenya, the highest Aga Khan institution with responsibility for Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Zaire and the Ivory Coast.

He served as the Deputy Chair of AMREF for 3 years and joined the Nairobi Hospice Board in 1992, being elected Chairman in 1996. The Hospice operates from a small building with a corrugated roof, in one corner of the Kenyatta National Hospital complex. The Directors on the Board, the decision making arm of the Nairobi Hospice, are all volunteers. The hospice became the first to offer Palliative Care in East and Central Africa – a joint Diploma Course in Palliative Care, developed at the Hospice, now takes in students from Uganda, Malawi, Tanzania, Swaziland and South Africa. The mission is simple; to work with the dying and their families, bringing pain relief, support and dignity to those in its care. For his work in health care he was awarded the Head of State Commendation, and the Moran of the Burning Spear award.

http://www.awaazmagazine.com/
http://www.brookes.ac.uk/about/honorary/profiles/nizar-verjee