Why the Mukwege Cohort?

At the start of their Honours Programme in April 2024, this group of students chose to go by the name Dr Denis Mukwege.

About Dr Denis Mukwege and why he was chosen

Dr Denis Mukwege (born 1955) is an internationally recognized Congolese gynaecologist, humanitarian, human rights activist, and Nobel Peace Prize laureate from the Democratic Republic of Congo in Central Africa. He founded Panzi hospital in Bukavu, a city in his home country, where he and his staff treat women who are victims of sexual violence. The country has been going through ongoing conflict since the 1990s.

He is well-known as one of the world's leading medical experts in the treatment of survivors of wartime sexual violence and has become a prominent voice advocating against the use of rape as a weapon of war. Dr Mukwege's work is so dangerous that he and his family survived an assassination attempt in 2012, and his life has been threatened many times over the years.

Dr Mukwege founded the Mukwege Foundation in 2016 to further support survivors of conflict-related sexual violence. The foundation provides medical care, psychological support, legal assistance, and socio-economic support, while also advocating aganist the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war. In 2018, the Nobel Peace Prize was jointly awarded to him and Nadia Murad "for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict."

We hope his work will inspire the students to be community-builders and to strive to make a meaningful impact in their future careers.