Undergraduate
Nursing
Then a Seattle U nursing student, Rebecca Conte Okelo, ’07 RN, ’15 LEMBA, was forever changed by a junior year service trip to Ghana where she witnessed advanced-stage AIDS patients being denied routine medical care. “I was just devastated by what I had seen,” Okelo recalls. “I came back and had no idea what I could do about it.”
What she did was found a health clinic there to help children and adults living with HIV and AIDS. In nearly a decade since, her clinic has grown to become Med25, a multifunctional health center, nursery, vocational school and orphanage. The clinic has helped thousands of patients and has plans to expand into regions and countries.
“This large care center has literally changed the face of HIV and AIDS in the community,” Okelo says.
Okelo credits the role her Seattle U education had in helping shape what has become her life’s work. “Seattle U has absolutely been the catalyst in what Med25 has become.”