International Conference: “Global access to infertility care: the Walking Egg project”, Stellenbosch University, South Africa
Monday and Tuesday, 24 and 25 November 2014, The Walking Egg organized, in collaboration with the University of Stellenbosch, the University of Hasselt and the VLIR-UOS (Flemish Interuniversity Council and University Development Cooperation) an international conference. Venue of the conference was the University of Stellenbosch, Tygerberg, South Africa. The theme for the conference was “Global access to infertility care: the Walking Egg project”, which anticipated to a variety of areas of accessible and affordable infertility care. The conference aimed to provide a forum for experts to present academic work, receive feedback from academics on their research, testify, debate and network with colleagues within and outside South Africa; attendees came also from Mozambique, Uganda, Ghana, Kenya, Botswana and Belgium. The conference theme was an especially good fit to the discussion on accessible and affordable infertility care to a much larger proportion of the world population, given its emphasis on linking local and global infertility issues and on making the interdependence between international and regional concerns and local communities more visible. The meeting was highly appreciated by the participants. The following testimony emphasizes the importance as well as the appreciation: “I would like to thank you for the invitation to attend and speak at the conference. It was an honour to speak among giants such as Prof. Ombelet, Dr. Campo, Prof. Kruger and others who have contributed greatly in the progression of reproductive medicine. I learnt quite a lot from all the speakers. I was challenged to do better for the patients I serve and was equally surprised to learn that there is so much similarity in infertile patient suffering among the African countries. It was a great forum to share our different experiences. I hope this happens every year!”