This is an interesting account of the ups and downs of working in a Community Health Information Center in Kenya. The staff normally meets different obstacles along the way—from rough roads and bad weather to hostile clients. This time they literally have to cross a raging river. What is admirable is their neverending enthusiasm to serve people despite adversity.

WiRED recently expanded its partnership with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) in June 2005 by launching a new computer lab in Iraq. Through this partnership, WiRED outfitted the Iraqi Teacher’s Union (ITU) with computer equipment and is now providing a complete training course for ITU officials.

According to its Director, Dr. Cesar Flores, the Medical Information Center (MIC) at the Centro de Salud de Sutiava Clinic in Leon, Nicaragua, serves as an important resource for doctors and medical students. The MIC provides up to date medical information which serves not only in the practice of medicine, but also in medical research.

WiRED expanded its Medical Information Center project in the former Yugoslavia with the launch of Centers in the Medical Faculty at the University of Prishtina, Kosovo and at the Medical Faculty at the University of Belgrade, Serbia. Both facilities now provide doctors and medical students with information from a medical CD collection and medical Websites.

Jim Mollen was killed in Iraq on the day before Thanksgiving. Mollen was the U.S. Embassy’s senior advisor on Iraqi educational matters. He was shot to death in a car outside the Green Zone while traveling from a meeting.

Plans for a December installation of the 17 Centers has been delayed because of increasing violence in and around Baghdad and other cities. Pre-election assaults on the population and on government officials have has made transportation and installation of the equipment very difficult everywhere and impossible in some regions…”

WiRED International, on August 6, 2004 opened the doors to the second of its Medical Information Centers (MIC) in Leon, Nicaragua. The ribbon cutting launched a seven-station electronic library that will be used by several hundred faculty and medical students at the Centro de Salud de Sutiava Clinic.

Dedication speech by Gary Selnow, Ph.D.

Wired International and the International Organization for Migration www.iom.int have collaborated with our hospital to develop an electronic library—the Medical Information Center. This facility, on the fifth floor of our hospital, is one of ten Medical Information Centers installed by WiRED and IOM in Iraq.

Dr. Wadhad Mahbuba is the manager of WiRED International’s Medical Information Centers in Iraq. The Iraqi physician describes here how the four original Centers, which were installed in mid-2003, are operating today. He offered this account in a conversation with WiRED’s Gary Selnow who is working in Baghdad.