H.E. First Lady of São Tomé & Príncipe @ 12th Merck Foundation Africa Asia Luminary 2025

Описание: Senator Dr. Rasha Kelej, B.Sc. Pharma, MBA, Chief Executive Officer, Merck Foundation. My views are personal.

“I’m excited to share the powerful speech delivered by my dear sister, H.E. Mrs. MARIA DE FATIMA VILA NOVA, The First Lady of the Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe and Ambassador of Merck Foundation More Than a Mother, from the opening day of the 12th Edition of the Merck Foundation Africa Asia Luminary 2025 in Banjul, The Gambia. The conference was co-chaired by my dear sister, H.E. Mrs. Fatoumatta Bah‑Barrow, the First Lady of The Gambia and myself.

In her address, she announced that scholarships have been provided for the 40 best-performing but underprivileged schoolgirls and boys, till they graduate. She also mentioned that the “Educating Linda and Lindo” program is very close to her heart as it provides an opportunity to deserving but underprivileged children to reach their full potential and thrive in life.

She further highlighted that eight annual prestigious Merck Foundation Awards have been launched under the themes “More Than a Mother” and “Diabetes and Hypertension”. These awards are for media, musicians, fashion designers, filmmakers, students and emerging talents from these fields. Through these awards, we are encouraging our youth to harness their creativity as a force for raising awareness about key issues.

We have also launched together several community awareness initiatives.

We have introduced beautifully crafted children’s storybooks, along with their accompanying animation films, in the Portuguese language. These creative resources represent an innovative and powerful way of raising awareness about key social and health issues at an early age. Merck Foundation has sent us thousands of copies of the children’s storybook that we are going to distribute in our schools in partnership with the Ministry of Education. We are also making the animation films widely accessible by putting them on our social media, and we will also broadcast on our National TV so they can benefit the whole nation.”

Dr. Rasha Kelej
CEO of Merck Foundation
Chairperson of Merck Foundation Africa Asia Luminary

Disclaimer
This page content is not intended for US/ Canadian audiences. Merck KGaA Darmstadt Germany operates in the US and Canada as EMD Serono in Healthcare, Millipore Sigma in Life Science and EMD Performance Materials. In the rest of the world, we operate under the Merck trademark.

SUBSCRIBE here and watch my visits to Africa and our efforts to change the world: https://goo.gl/1mNsBt