Stories from the Field: WaterGuard and Behavior Change: The Mzungus and their strange American water

By Stephanie Ullrich

We have now been told multiple times that people in this community do not believe that we are drinking the same water as them from the borehole or shallow well. Apparently they have been observing our reusable water bottles and thought that we brought our own special water from the United States with us.

When this happened again today, Douglas- one of our Ugandan team members- ensured the woman that we were indeed drinking the same water as her, but also using WaterGuard to treat it. Waterguard is a water purification tablet used in 20L of water for 30 minutes to kill the bacteria in the water. After we fetch water from the borehole, we put one tablet into our Jerry can labeled “drinking water” and let it sit before its ready to drink or use for brushing our teeth. WaterGuard is sold locally at all village trading posts, and it’s the water purification technique that UVP promotes in the villages.

When the women insisted that the water treated with WaterGuard tasted and smelled funny, Douglas even went so far as to prove to her that there was no difference. He emptied the woman’s mug and took Andre’s water from his water bottle to pour it into her mug. After she tasted it she said she could not tell the difference between her old water and Andre’s treated water.

We anticipate that promoting WaterGuard is going to be one of the hardest challenges we face because it centers on sustained behavior change. Not only are we asking the village members to buy WaterGuard on a regular basis, we are asking them to treat water that they perceive as already ok to drink straight from the borehole. It is hard to prove to them that the water is not fit for drinking before treatment because they have been drinking it for years. We will struggle to prove to them this because no one can physically see the bacteria in the water. And we will struggle to prove to them that using WaterGuard could save them money in the long run because it clean water can prevent child diarrhea (aka advanced charges for medicine and treatment) and taking away productive work days because of sickness.

Stories from the Field: Hello from the Nutrition Team

By Nishant Pandya

Monday, June 18th marked the start of what I considered the Nutrition Team's first work week. Our first week had been a transitional period in order for us to get used to our new home, a new lifestyle, and to orient ourselves. The major project of the week was the information session we were going to hold at the village health clinic, and the focus group with the savings club. Both of these events were to be held on Wednesday. 

After spending Monday outlining how these events would go, Tuesday was spent practicing and rehearsing them to ensure they went smoothly. After feeling sufficiently confident during run throughs, we considered ourselves ready for the actual sessions on Wednesday.

The information session in the morning focused on child and maternal health. We talked about breastfeeding, complimentary feedings, and opened the floor to questions. Despite not understanding much of what was being said, I could tell when a message had stuck. Not being able to understand Lusoga, the verbal language, gave me the ability to focus more on body language. I could tell who was engaged, when people checked out, and if a message had hit home. Later that day, we held a focus group to introduce ourselves to the village. We talked about beliefs they held on nutrition, figured out what foods could be found, and played a game to where we would recite statements and the villagers would say if they agreed or disagreed. Once again, I barely understood what was being said by the villagers, but Caroline and Alex would always fill me in on when something important was said. I spent the time reading body language, helping out however I could, and most importantly, thinking how the Nutrition team could get better for the next session we hold.

By Matt Cognetti

Working with the UVP will make you smarter.

Hello my name is Matt Cognetti and I am one-fourth of the nutrition team, here is part of my UVP story.

Nishant and I started researching a nutrition project to implement into the Uganda Village Project since November 2011, during this time we have went through many revisions, but it has been one of the best learning experiences I’ve had at Penn State... mostly due to an increase in motivation.


While some of my classmates were struggling with the last semester push of senior year, I regarded myself as very fortunate. I could see the importance of my public health, health behavior, and epidemiology classes. I was lucky I had found a reason to care. UVP had made concepts such as ecological model, theory of planned behavior, and household sampling methods relevant to me, and crucial to the work we do everyday.

This has also been a rewarding experience because fresh from my formative undergrad years. I get to work with very smart master of public health candidates, and insanely intelligent and competent Ugandan interns. I could not have asked for a better growth experience as I go to apply for a future career as a doctor and research scientist.

Nishant and Matt are both interning with UVP this summer as part of the Nutrition team. 

Video from the Field: Malaria Skit in Namkesu Village

Interns living in Namkesu put on a play for the community on malaria prevention, integrating local methods to protect  against mosquito bites that cause malaria.

Stories from the Field: Lots of Teaching, Lots of Learning

By Emily Maheux

We had many sensitizations this week in Kazigo B with four sensitization in three days.  We learned a lot about how to work with our community and approaches to teaching young kids.  We performed skits on malaria for the community with paper mosquitos hanging from sticks (thank you Kazigo A) and the community members loved it.  One of our VHT members played the role of “VHT” in the skits and surprised us all with his superb acting ability.  He stole the hearts of the crowd when he pretended to slap the paper mosquitos away.  Any community members nearby who were not already watching the skits became curious.  All fifty of the mosquito nets that we started with were sold after the sensitization. 

We held our sanitation sensitization at Kazigo Junior School on Wednesday, which went smoothly but I noticed that students started losing interest in the demonstrations and discussion on germs.  Luckily, we had another chance to capture the attention of young children on Thursday morning at Toka Primary School, the local government school, during another sanitation sensitization.  For this sensitization, we teamed up with the Kazigo A team to teach about 700 students.  With the hopes of exciting the kids, we invited all of the students to participate in a warm-up this time.  Lauren and I had all the students stand up and follow us in one of our favorite games.  Together we would clap, dance, jump, etc. and have the kids mimic our movements and repeat our declaration of whatever we were doing: “I am jumping!”, “I am twirling!” and so on.  We started slow and then got faster and faster until at the end of it all, we slowed down again with some stretches and finished with “I am sitting quietly.”  After that, we split them into groups for each activity, where we also tried to make each demonstration more interactive.  In the afternoon, when we sensitized on HIV and STIs, we had the older kids spell the word “mango” with their hips (many thanks for the warm-up, Rashad).  This was also a huge hit and the activities that followed went well also.  We had the students play a game to test their knowledge on STIs and another to show the spread of HIV.  A third group discussed the ABC prevention strategy (A – Abstinence, B – Be faithful, C – Condom use). 

We were fortunate to have a very full and fulfilling week in Kazigo.  We certainly hope our audiences learned a lot from us and undoubtedly, we have also learned a lot from them.  I have learned from this exciting week that if we want to get our message across, we must also remember to have fun in the process.

Emily is the Administrative Team Leader of Kazigo B. Her teammates include Simon-Peter (Implementation Team Leader), Daniel, Corrie, Gloria, and Lauren.

Stories from the Field: Visiting Iganga Hospital & Impromptu Drama

By Lindsey Anderson


We are now getting into the rhythm of things in Kazigo A. The focus this week was pretty much on Baseline Surveys and sensitizations. I, however, got to visit Iganga Hospital on Monday. It was definitely a memorable experience. Lauren and Gloria (both from Kazigo B) and I got to tour a few of the wards in the hospital. The first we went to was the surgical theatre, where we witnessed 2 complete C-sections. The sanitation was definitely eye-opening. We even saw one of the doctors take off his glove to answer his phone and then put it back on. It was crazy!

On Tuesday and Wednesday we focused mostly on Baseline Surveys, so we got to travel around the village for a little while and see a lot of the houses. When Felix and I were traveling around with one of our VHTs, we came a small house with an old woman, who, apparently, loved to talk. When we asked her when malaria mosquitos bite, she answered “oooh, mosquito bites hurt so much!” and just went on and on about the bites. Our VHT finally had to get her back on track.

On Friday, we had our second Malaria sensitization at the primary school, but our drama group never showed up! So, we had to make everything up on the spot! I guess it ended up going well, because with significantly less people, we still sold all 50 nets! After the sensitization, the drama group showed up, finally, and asked if they could still do their drama…hopefully it will go more smoothly next time.

Stories from the Field: "There's no place like home..." -- Second post by returning intern, Alicia Majeau

By Alicia Majeau


There’s no place like home… even when that home means battling rats, disagreeing with your neighbors over the toilet, and fending off giant hornets as they nightly try to join you under your mosquito net. After three weeks in Kidaago, our house is definitely feeling like a home. Although there have certainly been some less-than- ideal happenings, such is village life, and facing the challenges that arise is part of what helps this experience change your perspective. And for every rat getting into the food in the pantry, there’s been a wonderful family dinner; for every insult muttered by a disgruntled teacher, a wonderful conversation. We have seen some difficult things, another child in the village passing away last week and the body being laid out for all to see, but we have also seen some beautiful things, village children inviting us to join in their impromptu song and dance session at our house. The people of Kidaago B have also been hospitable to an extreme. This previous week alone, we received three large bags of ground nuts, several mangos, beans, eggs, and ears of maize.


Being so well received overall has made our work in the village a pleasant experience. This past week saw the beginning of our baseline surveys about household sanitation and mosquito net use. Asking to inspect someone’s toilet and enter their house to see a net hanging where they sleep allows for some potential awkwardness, and when people are unwilling, it makes one all the more uncomfortable. We have been very fortunate in Kidaago B, and as yet have met very little resistance. Our first sensitization was also well attended and our HIV and syphilis testing day, which occurred this past Thursday, was a huge success, with 230 villagers coming out to get tested. It is hard to believe that our time in Kidaago B is almost halfway through, but I prefer looking at as still having a little more than half of our time left. Looking forward, my team has a lot of great work still to come, and I am just as excited about our work now as I was at the onset of our program.


This is the second blog post by Alicia Majeau. Read her first post here. Alicia is an incoming graduate student in Molecular Microbiology & Immunology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She interned with UVP in 2011 and returned this summer to serve as a team leader. 

Stories from the Field: Understanding Village Needs

By Michelle Parks

Uganda is truly a beautiful country. Our house is surrounded by crops of maize and Irish potatoes, mango trees, jackfruit trees, and other green vegetation. Because we live in a house on the Kidaago Primary School compound, there are always welcoming children around, excited to see the “muzungus.” The villagers have been very kind and hospitable to us as well. Although they usually giggle, they appreciate our attempted Lusoga greetings.

This is my second week in Kidaago B. I am slowly learning more Lusoga and adapting to living in the village. I am getting used to wearing my long skirts out in the field, hand washing my clothes, taking bucket showers, using the latrine :-P, and learning to tolerate lots of bugs! Big bugs! But as Jake says… “Beautiful bugs!”

On Wednesday a group of children came to the house in the evening. They offered us maize and began to perform and sing while we watched on the front porch. The singing attracted other village children, and some began drumming on empty jerry cans. One of the girls (she was probably 8 or 9) was an amazing dancer! I need lessons. Alicia and Julius even joined in on the dancing for a little bit.

On Tuesday, we had our second community meeting with Zone 2 of Kidaago B. I was able to successfully introduce myself to the audience in Lusoga! Many of the village needs brought up in the Zone 2 meeting were similar to the issues that were brought up at the Zone 1 meeting. Several villagers addressed that there is only one source of water in Zone 2, so villagers who live on the far side of the village must travel several kilometers to fill their jerry cans each day. As a result, children retrieving water for their families often miss part of school because their journey to the borehole is so far. People also expressed concern about the prevalence of HIV/ STI’s in the village. Others raised questions about UVP’s Eye Care and Family Planning programs. After the meeting was over, a woman approached us and gave us the contact information for a fistula case. It was obvious after a short meeting with this group of villagers that there is a need for all of UVP’s programs here.

Later in the week, the team mobilized for the upcoming HIV sensitization. At several households, we met villagers that complained a member of the household was sick. When we advised the family that the sick individual should go to the health center, they had complaints about the health center and were reluctant to go and get treatment. “There are no available drugs,” “I wont be attended to,” and “the health center is far” were common complaints. At one home, a man had been feeling sick for six years and had never visited a health center!

We had a good turnout for our HIV/STI sensitization on Friday. The villagers were pleased that there was an upcoming HIV/syphilis testing day; they reported that there were many people in the village who had never been tested for HIV. They also requested a female condom demonstration, most people in the audience had most likely not used one before.

Next week we will begin doing our baseline surveys in the village and have the St. Marys HIV/syphilis testing day. Each day in Kidaago B, I learn more about the culture, interact with new smiling children, and take part in activities that will eventually benefit the community.  I am excited for my upcoming adventures in Kidaago B. 

Michelle Parks is a Master's student studying Tropical Medicine at Tulane University. She is from Spokane, Washington.

Stories from the Field: "A Bittersweet Start" by Jake Friedman, Kidaago B

By Jake Friedman

There is no better housemate bonding activity than cleaning the house you're about to live in for the next two months. It was our first day in Kidaago B and after many hours spent dusting, killing bugs, and burning dried banana leaves in our latrine to relieve the stench, we were able to enjoy dinner as a family. This new family consists of two team leads (Alicia and Eddy) and two other co-interns (Michelle and Allen). My name is Jake and I have left my family in the suburbs of DC to start a public health journey in rural Uganda.

We were told during our Uganda Village Project orientation that moving into the village would involve being embraced by the villagers as if we were one of their own. In this great hospitable gesture, we would also have to adhere to cultural norms of Eastern Uganda. Wearing decent clothes, learning Lusoga (the local language), familiarizing ourselves with how to greet one another, and getting used to bucket showers and latrines are just a few of the changes we would have to make. We were also told what to do during a funeral, and unfortunately this was a dilemma we faced on day two of our internship. It was suggested to us that we attend the funeral and bring a small gift to show our condolence, because if it was one of us who had died the other villagers would attend the funeral also with gifts.

Even though it’s been a bitter sweet start, we have established house rules and started planning our HIV/ STI sensitization for next week. We have incorporated the new cultural norms into our family and we are ready for the next two months.  

Jake is a senior from Maryland studying psychology at the University of Colorado at Boulder. 

Lemonade for a Cause: Four-year-old donates lemonade sales to UVP

By Anthony Bui

On a warm summer day last year in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Graham, age 4, and his cousin Megan, age 9, set up shop on the curb in front of Graham’s house to sell lemonade.

But while most kids beam at the thought of the money they’ll get after selling lemonade and what they can buy with it, Graham was excited for a different reason.

It all started when Graham and his mom, Molly, were looking through “LIFE 100 Photographs that Changed the World.” Graham’s curiosity heightened on page 75.

“It was sad to see,” his mom said, “he was so curious about those boys and the child’s hands. I explained to him that those kids were hungry and that they needed money to help their tummies get full.”

A few days later Graham decided to have a lemonade stand. He and his mom talked and decided they would raise some money to send to those children. They went online and found the Uganda Village Project, and Graham decided that it was the right place to send it.

After a few hours of calling out to cars and making signs, Graham and his cousin brought in $35, selling lemonade at 25 cents a cup, along with rice crispy treats and cupcakes. 

Some days after the lemonade stand, Graham said to his mom, out of the blue, “mom, are those kids hungry anymore?”

“I said yes,” his mom tells us, “he was excited to hear back from UVP; it let him know that the money really went somewhere. I try to remind him when he has food left on his place, or when he really wants something that he does not need, or when he leaves the water running too long, to think of those kids. We are so lucky.”

A year later, Graham and his mom took the same book out. He saw the pictures of those same boys and said, “they don’t look like that anymore, right mom, because we sent them money?” Graham is thinking about holding another lemonade stand soon.

Uganda Village Project would like to thank Graham, his mother, and Megan for their generous support. Every little bit helps! 

Set up your own lemonade stand and consider donating to Uganda Village Project by visiting http://www.ugandavillageproject.org/get-involved/donate

Stories from the Field: Understanding Community Work in Kazigo B

By Emily Maheux

This week in Kazigo B, we felt very productive.  We started our baseline surveys, which consisted of introducing ourselves and our program and then checking the facilities.  We assessed the kitchens, latrines, wash rooms, tippy taps, trash pits, and plate stands of each household.  We found that most homes had excellent kitchens but unclean latrines and wash rooms.  We saw only a couple of tippy taps after visiting over 70 households but more had trash pits and plate stands.  We also asked questions about the needs of the community and consistently found that malaria was the most prevalent health concern.  Later in the day, after visiting the households, we were thrilled to find that three different families were building plate stands!  For those who might be confused, a plate stand is a two-shelved stand, made with sticks, which provides a space off the ground for dishes to dry and avoid bacteria.  A tippy tap is a small contraption with a jerry can that allows people to wash their hands without touching the jerry can itself. 

Another highlight was our community meeting.  The final attendance sheet read 125 names, including our team, which we felt to be a huge success for such a small village.  Our biggest challenge of the week was a scheduled sensitization at Kazigo Junior School, the private school in Kazigo B.  We planned three activities that explained the nature of germs.  First, showing how when ash gets on one’s hands and then you shake hands with others, it spreads, just as germs do.  Second, when salt is added to water, it becomes invisible, just as germs in water can be, but they are still present and capable of getting people sick.  Third, when oil is on hands, washing with water does not always clean it from your hands.  Similarly, germs often times need soap to be removed.  We planned and practiced for this sensitization but arrived at the school to find most of the kids gone and the choir practice starting.  Instead of teaching about sanitation, we enjoyed an exciting performance from the choir and will be very ready for the rescheduled sensitization next week.  Overall, I think we are starting to understand the nature of our community work and how we can best serve Kazigo B.   

Emily, Simon-Peter, Daniel, Corrie, Gloria, and Lauren are interns working in Kazigo B this summer.