From Ghana to Albion and back: How Kwame Sakyi is helping parents and babies a continent away

Scratch the surface of some pre-med students and you’ll find a personal connection to a medical crisis. Kwame Sakyi ’09 is one of those examples.

“My sister had a very pre-term baby and faced many challenges,” Sakyi said, addressing one of his motivations to become an obstetrician.

Albion College helped him realize his dream of helping mothers and babies in Ghana, but not in the way he expected. 

Thanks in part to his experience doing a research project supported by Albion’s Foundation for Undergraduate Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity (FURSCA), Kwame swapped his medical school plans to study public health. He’s now an associate professor at Oakland University. Despite this demanding full-time job, Kwame is also the co-founder and director of the Center for Learning and Childhood Development in Ghana (CLCD-Ghana). 

Last year, with funding from the National Institutes of Health, Kwame (and his American family) moved from Michigan to Ghana, where he will spend the next three years overseeing projects devoted to improving infant mortality through multiple channels.

One project incorporates high-tech monitoring and data collection to assess a parenting practice as old as parenthood itself. “Hypothermia is a big problem for premature infants because they can’t control their body temperatures. Skin-to-skin contact is the best way to prevent this, but 24-hour swaddling is impractical for parents who are usually working and caring for families, Kwame said.

The CLCD-Ghana believes it can address this problem with wearable thermometers that alert parents to dropping body temperatures. In addition, the monitors will collect data that can be used in a variety of ways. 

“We might see patterns that cause or prevent hypothermia, or some data might tell us we need to step in with early intervention on likely developmental issues,” Kwame said. “This project will benefit babies and parents immediately and in the longer term as well.”

The major focus of the next three years, however, is the multinational project Kwame will direct,  intended to help multiple African and South American countries set up intersectoral policies, programs and services to support early childhood development. It’s going to be a long and difficult project, but Kwame is excited for the challenge.

“If you don’t work with the government to create a better system you’re dancing in a circle,” he said. “When I was at Albion, I would have been very surprised if you told me I was going to help babies by working in public policy, teaching, and directing a nonprofit. But I know now that this is the best way I can care for those babies and families.”

Along with FURSCA and his biology and international studies majors, Kwame credits the Albion community, including a local church and the late professor emeritus Dean Dillery with ensuring his success. “For international students, it’s critical to have community support because you don’t have your family,” Kwame said. “Albion was very warm and welcoming and I found the support that was so important.”

Settling back into his homeland, Kwame reports that his younger son took his first steps in Ghana and his wife Cori Weddell Sakyi ‘09, a nurse midwife, is hoping to become certified to practice in Ghana. 

There’s only one thing missing.

“My parents moved to the U.S. so they could be closer to the grandchildren,” he said. “They are happy I’m here, but it’s also going to be a long three years for them.”