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Energised for a new era: Dr Munya Saruchera leads the re-visioned Africa Centre

The Africa Centre for HIV/Aids Management is starting 2025 with several exciting changes to herald in a new era, which will build on the centre’s significant contribution to tackling one of the greatest public health challenges of our time during the more than two decades of its existence. In addition to renaming the centre to the Africa Centre for Inclusive Health Management to reflect its new strategic direction, senior lecturer Dr Munya Saruchera is back in the director’s seat. He previously filled the position from July 2021 to March 2024.

Saruchera is the first director of the centre who was voted into the role. It is also the first time that the role is regarded as an academic position, which is on par with being head of an academic department – in the past it was classified as a professional administrative support staff position and appointed by the dean of the Economic and Management Sciences Faculty.

From vision to implementation

Saruchera led the centre’s strategic re-visioning process, which commenced in late 2021 when he first assumed the director role. The new strategy involves expanding the centre’s focus to broader issues of health management beyond HIV/Aids that are relevant to an evolving global health landscape of current, future and re-emerging epidemics or pandemics. Implementing the strategy via launch events and activities and translating these into tangible outcomes – including new academic programmes and thought leadership on inclusive health management – is therefore a crucial focus area of his role.

Naturally, any new endeavour comes with challenges, but Saruchera chooses to see these as opportunities for growth and learning. “The journey is far more exciting than the destination. It is the pathfinding, exploring, failing and working until we crack it that energises me.” A keen awareness of the crucial nature of the task at hand further drives him. “The global polycrisis demands a new paradigm and leadership that enable and support a sustainable, innovative and shared future of equitable and inclusive health, which is critical to a sustainable human society.”

The power of partnerships

Saruchera recognises that the challenges to be addressed are far bigger than the Africa Centre team or any single organisation. He strongly believes collaboration is an important attribute for success in the increasingly complex world of work. Working with strategic partners will therefore be critical to the centre’s future trajectory, including local, national and international health management partners in research, grant funding and community work. “Aligning with others in health management will help us broaden our focus beyond HIV/Aids management to inclusive management of other health conditions (including, for example, mental health and drug and substance abuse) and related issues such as disability, climate change, the health economy and social innovations for health.”

Saruchera’s appointment overlaps with the first in-person summer school for Postgraduate Diploma in HIV/Aids Management students since 2019, when these events moved online following Covid-19. Even though the revised PgDip with an inclusive health focus will only be introduced in 2026, the upcoming summer school on 3 to 7 February will already involve an expansion to integrated health management.

Saruchera explains: “We have invited several guest speakers involved in different aspects of health that interface with HIV/Aids management. In sharing their expertise and experience, they will enhance the incoming PgDip students’ perspectives on health and the intersectionality of various issues and socio-ecological dynamics that impinge on health and wellbeing.”

Balance, servanthood and support

Having dealt with the challenges of the director’s position before, Saruchera has every intention to ensure that no urgency or amount of work takes priority over his personal commitments or general wellbeing. What does this look like in practice? “Laughing often (including at myself), playing music, forest bathing, daily walks, gardening, eating healthily, getting eight hours of sleep, taking breaks, no work emails on my phone and managing responses to work-related messages.”

He believes a more balanced approach should not have any impact on the centre’s work and outputs: “The Africa Centre has a capable team that can share in the heavy lifting and receive the leadership baton from me when needed,” he says with confidence.

Indeed, Saruchera believes that leadership is not about the leader but rather an avenue to support the growth of others: “A life of significance is about serving others with our gifts, our leadership and our purpose.”

Does our commitment to an equitable and inclusive health management agenda align with your organisation’s purpose and mission? Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us and start a conversation.

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