University of Global Health Equity

A growing hub of PIH's training and education programs dedicated to improving health care services and delivery for underserved populations around the world through curriculum and training that pairs a focus on human rights and social justice with rigorous, community-based medical education. 

High in the mountains of Butaro, Rwanda, the University of Global Health Equity (UGHE) is quietly building a new health care future for the entire world.

Here, future clinicians, care delivery professionals, and health care leaders train to deliver health care as a human right for all, regardless of wealth or geography. 

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The future of health care, happening right now. 

A medical university built by, and for, everyone who medicine has historically refused to heal.

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The residents of Burera District, where UGHE is located, didn’t have a public hospital as recently as 2008. Today, they receive care at Butaro District Hospital, just two miles away from UGHE’s campus, which will serve as one of multiple teaching hospitals for university students. The hospital and its cancer center are supported by Inshuti Mu Buzima, as PIH is known in Rwanda. Together, these two radical institutions, as well as the communities they serve, are a shining beacon of possibility.

UGHE launched in 2015 in collaboration with Rwanda’s government and with catalytic funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Cummings Foundation. The university offers a one-year master’s in global health delivery degree and, in 2019, welcomed the first class in its six-and-a-half-year medical program, which combines the master’s degree with bachelor’s degrees in medicine and surgery, educating and training students who will be prepared to immediately work in clinical settings upon graduation. 

With students and alumni from more than 12 countries, the university is living up to its global name and vision.

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A Model for Health Education

The United Nations' education agency highlighted UGHE as a model for equitable global health education describing it as a "high quality health sciences institution" helping shift the center of gravity from where it has traditionally been, within higher-income countries, to lower-income countries -  specifically, within Africa.

The report, published by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organizations (UNESCO) in February 2022, discusses the role of higher education institutions in advancing the UN's 2030 agenda, which includes ensuring "inclusive and equitable quality education."

Too often, global health professionals are education in classrooms thousands of miles away from vulnerable communities and the oppressive, yet eminently treatable, cluster of health problems they experience. 

We've pioneered a new way of training leaders who emerge ready to develop health care services and systems that connect neglected communities with life-saving attention. Graduates of UGHE are equipped to lead programs and organizations that treat entire systems, not just symptoms, to improve health and save lives.

Today, 100% of students receive need-based and merit-based grants. And, 100% of all financial aid is provided by philanthropic contributions from people like you. 

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Interested in using other means to make your gift or giving to the Paul E. Farmer Scholarship Fund? Please contact Abida Adnan aadnan@ughe.org or Nduta Kuria nkuria@ughe.org