Nabirere A: a young family improves sanitation

Wotali is 21 and has lived in Nabirere A for 11 years. She married when she was 19 and she and her husband live close to the village mosque. They are farmers and she sells chapatti that her husband makes. Wotali was the first person to buy a “sanitation kit” from our team to construct a tippy tap and plate stand, the day after our community WASH sensitization.

How did you first hear about UVP?
Wotali: I had never heard about UVP until some of the team came to conduct a baseline survey at my house.

What UVP events have you attended?
Wotali: I attended the family planning and WASH sensitizations and went to the borehole clean-up day at the mosque.

Why did you attend these events?
Wotali: Curiosity, primarily. I wanted to see what these interns had to say.

What impact, if any, have UVP’s activities had in your life so far?
Wotali: I was inspired into action by each of the sensitizations. I had never heard of family planning until I attended the sensitization and afterwards I started on a family planning method. After I went to the WASH sensitization, I decided to buy the sensitization kit because I wanted my house and my family to have a plate stand and a tippy tap to improve our health. I will continue to attend UVP activities and hope to continue learning.

Bukaigo: interview with a VHT

Godfrey Nadomi is a member of the Village Health Team in Buvule (in Bukaigo, we work with Buvule, too). He is a history teacher in a secondary school. He was a resident of Businduka in Ruwuka district where he also served as a VHT before he moved to Buvule where he has lived for five years. He first heard about UVP from Obbo Titus, one of the UVP staff, who was coordinating the UVP programs at that time.

This is what he says about UVP: “The community members in Buvule are so appreciative of the work Uganda Village Project is doing in the village. Before UVP came into this village, sanitation and hygiene here were really poor but now people have changed their status and uplifted their health; latrines and plate stands have been constructed. There was also indiscriminate disposal of solid waste but due to this project, people have been health educated. Therefore the status of the sanitation and hygiene in Buvule has increased from 32% to 78.2%."

“Working with UVP has positively affected [Buvule] because I am enjoying my life as I have access to safe water which was not the case five years ago before. . . I have gained more knowledge from the UVP training on different health issues and this has enabled me to health educated my fellow community members on issues like malaria which has been a problem and how to prevent it, sanitation and hygiene, water treatment, family planning. Before people used to boycott the family planning program, but UVP has taught them easier sensitization procedures, hence more community members have gained interest in controlling the pregnancies and planning for their children.

“Selling water guard to the community members is a nice idea as people now know the importance of using it. Before people used to say that using water guard makes water taste bad, but now they have been educated on the importance of this method of water treatment. After the WASH team sensitized the Buvule community members on how to correctly use water guard, they have been coming to buy the water guard you left behind with the VHTs.”

Buwoira: Working with Timothy

We recently had the chance to interview a Buwoira Village Health Team (VHT) member, Timothy. Timothy's work as a VHT focuses on HIV. We are so grateful for all of his help this summer in Buwoira; we would not have been able to accomplish so much without his steady presence, punctuality, and passion for improving health in his home village.

Timothy was born in Buwoira and has spent his whole life here, and has worked with many different non-governmental organizations over the years. In addition to being a VHT, Timothy is an engineer in the electricity field, a farmer who raises cattle, as well as a husband and father. Timothy has been a VHT for over 20 years, so when Titus introduced him to UVP, he was happy to be trained on UVP programs.

Timothy has experience with HIV, sanitation, malaria, and family planning, so it made sense for him to continue that work with UVP. Also, UVP helps make villagers more aware of the presence and expertise of VHTs. The VHTs in Buwoira have struggled with villagers not respecting their role, and UVP has helped with that. Timothy said he is excited to continue his work after the interns have gone.

Being involved with UVP has shown him the importance of sanitation and hygiene. In the past, there was not clean water for all villagers, but the addition of a shallow well has improved access to clean water. There was also low latrine coverage, but UVP sensitizations have helped increase coverage and reduce open defecation. Though Timothy’s current focus is HIV, his favorite topic is sanitation and hygiene and he especially likes encouraging villagers to build sanitation facilities to reduce the incidence of jiggers in homes. His least favorite part of being a VHT is that people can’t always differentiate good from bad. He does not like feeling like he has to force people to do things that they should be doing for their own benefit.

Thanks for all the help, Timothy!

Kasambiika: a VHT with a passion for health

It has been a great summer for every member of the UVP WASH Team in Kasambiika; one that would not have been possible without the help of proactive members in the community. Between mobilizing for events and advocating for UVP’s cause, among other things, the VHTs and other local leaders have been especially valuable to our work. The 10 active VHTs in Kasambiika I & II consisted of motivated men and women, eager to help out our team in any way they could. Naigaga Robinah Kabaale, one of the original two VHTs in Kasambiika II, was one of the most active and valuable to UVP and our team throughout the last two months.

This picture of Naigaga Robinah Kabaale was taken after
our safe water chain sensitization at the Kasambiika II
Catholic Church on 23 July 2015.

Robinah is currently one of six Village Health Team (VHT) members in Kasambiika II, and is 52 years of age. She lives with her husband, Kabaale Edward, and her four children in Kasambiika II -- just down the road from a the Kasambiika Health Center. She is passionate about health and sanitation in her community and throughout Uganda and has always been eager to do work in a health-related field. She began her work in Primary Health Care (PHC) and slowly became one of Kasambiika’s medicine distributors, as well as the government net distributor for the community. In 2013, with the arrival of UVP in the village, the local leader was contacted to hold a meeting with the UVP staff to elect and initiate VHTs to aid in the organization’s work. Robinah was named one of the two VHTs for Kasambiika II, and is now a certified VHT, along with being certified in PHC and Drug Distribution.

She was drawn to the work and mission of UVP because it mirrored her passion for health and sanitation improvement in her village and surrounding areas. This made her very interested in being involved with the interns and staff, seeing UVP as a platform for her to continue working in a field she has come to love. She specifically mentioned Titus and Maureen as two figures in UVP’s staff that were pivotal in her increased presence in the local public’s health. Additionally, Robinah credits UVP for helping her learn a lot more in terms of health -- not just knowledge, but also practical skills she can share with fellow villagers. For example, her knowledge of tippy taps and personal hygiene has grown to the point where she has built household tippy taps for many other homes in Kasambiika. She feels confident in not only helping build, but educating on maintenance and proper usage of this common hand washing facility.

UVP has helped Robinah in meeting new friends and colleagues that share her interests in health, as well as network in health fields throughout the area. She attributes her adept ability to associate and connect with others, a skill we have all witnessed this summer, to her training and experience with UVP. We have all experienced Robinah’s passion, hospitality, and ability to mobilize others to help UVP. Robinah says that the summer interns she has worked with have all been great and she is thankful that they have come to her village to work - despite wanting them all to stay longer.

She has seen increased health in her village since UVP’s Kasambiikan beginnings in 2013, but still sees much more room for improvement in years to come. Despite the fact that UVP will finish the three-year Healthy Village program in Kasambiika next May, she hopes the organization will continue to help out in any way they can.

Robinah has been an integral part of this summer, always attending UVP and other health-related events, as well as her constant efforts to help mobilize for our sensitizations. She is certainly a role model for others! We are very reluctant to leave the village Kasambiika and Robinah, but our experience has not been taken for granted, and we all hope to maintain contact with Robinah and the other members of Kasambiika we have become so close with. We wish Robinah and the rest of Kasambiika all the best with their health and other endeavors.

Kitukiro: The Power of Data and VHTs

A big Jambo (hello) from Kitukiro! We are over half way done and are eager to keep our work rolling. We have completed baseline surveys and were able to survey 98 out of our 160 households. We are very happy we were able to reach so many households in just 8 days of surveying! We were able to analyze the data and pick out myths people had and also realize areas that need further education. We will be using that data to create our sensitizations. We think the data collected shows us a good representation of the education level in Kitukiro.

While we were surveying, we did a lot of mobilization for an upcoming outreach and held our HIV Day on July 21^st. We had a team from St. Mary's join us and were able to have 128 people tested for HIV and 213 people tested for malaria. Many people were able to receive medication and get support. The people of Kitukiro were very happy with our services and we received very positive feedback from the village. We have not held other sensitizations yet and we hope that having a successful health day will help encourage more people to come to our future events. 

Another success for our team has been retraining our VHTs using our own curriculum. Each VHT is responsible for a certain health concern in the village, so it is of utmost importance that our VHT's are informed and help us dispel common misconceptions. Our VHTs were excited about the training. It is our hope that our VHTs are confident in their health knowledge by the time we leave so that they can continue to be valuable assets to the people of Kitukiro.

Also, both our fearless team leaders are ill with malaria causing our team to have to work harder and have better team work to have everything fall into place correctly. We are doing great with that and our team is working very well together!

We are looking forward to further VHT training and sensitizations on sanitation, family planning, and malaria. Lots to do in the next 3 weeks!!

Bukaigo: Community Sensitization

On July 9th we held our first community outreach session in Bukaigo. The focus of this sensitization was on clean water, personal hygiene, and sanitation. In an open forum we taught the community about the importance of the WHO recommended safe water chain, which includes maintaining a clean and sanitary water source, proper transport of water from the water source to the home, and correct treatment and storage of water once at home. We also taught about various common diseases caused by poor sanitation practices such as dysentery, hookworm, typhoid, cholera, and schistosomiasis. We focused on the causes of these diseases, their signs and symptoms, and how to prevent them from spreading. Later in the week we performed a needs assessment in two water scarce zones of the Buvule village. Now that the needs assessments are complete, UVP can assist the community in constructing new shallow wells to make access to clean water easier for community members living in these zones. As we were doing the needs assessment, we realized that because of the far distance to the nearest borehole, many people are drinking untreated water directly from the nearby swamp.

Although our first sensitization in Bukaigo was a success, our first community sensitization in Buvule we had very low attendance by community memebers. It was so disappointing since a lot of effort was put in preparing for it. However, this has helped us plan better for upcoming community outreaches since we learned that the venue we chose was not a good one and that we did not mobilize well enough. We have come up with a better community mobilization technique that will ensure that more members of the community turn up and venues for upcoming outreaches are being chosen carefully. Since learning from our failure in Buvule, our more recent sensitizations have had sufficient audiences.

This past week, we held a meeting with our Bukaigo and Buvule VHTs. We spent part of our time reviewing health information about WASH, malaria, and family planning. Since this is the last summer that these villages have UVP interns, it is especially important that they are well educated on these topics. After clarifying some amusing questions about family planning methods, we collected Most Significant Change Stories from our VHTs and took their photographs. They loved looking at their photographs afterwards! During the meeting, we also planned out our borehole cleanup day and brainstormed some ideas on how the VHTs could continue to promote health in coordination with the health center, including encouraging the health center to start selling WaterGuard and hosting a malaria testing or HIV testing day. Overall, the meeting was a great success and we all left feeling motivated to pursue our new ideas.

Kasambiika: Water Chain Sensitization

         

          Our first sensitization started with ideas from a lantern-lit brainstorming session: Tom would draft an introduction in Lusoga (always a crowd pleaser), our fearless team leaders, Gladys and Debbie, would explain our mission while the rest of us would present on the different components of the water chain. We spent the week perfecting our ricebag masterpieces (a term used very loosely) which illustrated the different stages of the Safe Water Chain: Collection, Transportation, Treatment and Storage.

            With the help of Swaga, the best VHT in the game, we spent all of Monday placing event posters around Kasambiika. Thanks to the hours of mobilization our other VHTs put in, people seemed excited. The night before our sensitization, we stumbled through our translation rehearsal and smoothed out the miscommunications. By our last rehearsal on Tuesday morning, Team Kasambiika was more than ready for our Water Chain sensitization.

           Using information from our surveys from the previous weeks, our main goal was to emphasize maintaining existing water sources, treating drinking water, and keeping transportation/storage containers clean. The only thing we forgot to account for was “Africa Time.” We spent two hours waiting for a crowd to accumulate while enjoying everyone’s favorite game: Twenty Questions. Eventually, there we were, standing in front of 20 women, green UVP shirts glowing, ready to educate on all things water. It was great. Some highlights include Tom’s Lusogan introduction, Sarah and Debbie’s clean water demonstration, and Gladys reminding everyone that “water is your friend.”

            We later found out that our sensitization’s attendance was low because of a death in the community and that the funeral the next day would affect tomorrow’s sensitization as well. Our sensitization for Kasambiika II was rescheduled for the following week. This was unexpected, but nothing we couldn't handle. We paid our respects at the funeral ceremony the next day, which turned out to be more of a celebration of life. People appreciated that we came and we were extremely grateful to have been invited. 

         Despite a couple hiccups here and there, Team Kasambiika held a successful sensitization with a positive response, surely a sign of more good things to come. 

Bukakaire: A busy three weeks

What a busy three weeks we’ve had here in Bukakaire! After finally conquering our bedbug fiasco (“knock on wood”), we finally got the hang of the daily rhythm of village life and our work. Though baselines started off slowly, we quickly picked up speed; we have now surveyed almost three quarters of the households in our village! During our surveys, we also discovered three women with obstetric fistula, whom we will make sure to steer to the appropriate services and our sensitization on obstetric fistula. The villagers have been very welcoming when we visit their homes and have been enthusiastic about responding to our survey. We’ve also collected many spontaneous gifts of groundnuts (a.k.a. peanuts) and jackfruit in the process.

Overall, we’ve found that there is a general lack of sanitation facilities (tippy taps, plate stands, proper latrine structures, garbage pits) and knowledge of and access to family planning/obstetric fistula services. In the next week we will be starting a house-to-house sanitation campaign to tackle these issues. During this campaign we will be helping people build sanitation facilities using subsidized materials. We will also be holding community sensitizations on safe water, sanitation, hygiene, family planning, and obstetric fistula. We are very excited to begin because we feel that we can make a big impact in the community. This week we gave our VHTs a tour of the sanitation facilities we built at our house to provide some visual examples. Their excitement is definitely a good first step!

We also held Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Sensitizations (WASH) at two primary schools in the community. At first we were overwhelmed by the 500 children sitting in front of us and gathering by the tippy tap. However, at the end of the day, we managed to maintain relative order and were pleasantly surprised by the amount of knowledge they had about WASH. After we installed a tippy tap at the school, a huge crowd of kids formed a line to try to wash their hands with it. We also taught them a handwashing song in the tune of Frère Jacques, and now we are constantly greeted with that song when kids run into us in the community.

We also had our HIV Outreach Day this week. We were presented with a challenge when we discovered that another organization was also hosting a medical camp on the same day and place. Communication with that organization proved to be very difficult; after many efforts we still were still unsure, even on the morning of the event, about what services they would provide, how they would provide them, and how we would work with them throughout the day.

However, we’ve gotten very good at last minute improvisation and flexibility. In the end, everything seemed to click together nicely. We managed to test around 160 people for HIV and 350 people for malaria! We wish we could have done more, because so many people turned up, but, unfortunately, supplies were limited. In the beginning, we were also worried that the medical camp would attract people from other villages and use up our limited supplies. To help prevent this from happening, we and our VHTs worked extra hard at mobilization. We must have done a great job because the people who showed up from Bukakaire far surpassed the people from other villages!

Despite many busy days, we’ve also managed to squeeze in some fun! One weekend our entire team went white water rafting on the River Nile. Anna got thrown into the rapids 3 times, and everyone, except Diane and the Ugandans, got severe sunburns on their thighs. In addition, Said and Joseph had their first cheeseburger. Said said he “had a good time with the cheeseburger.” On Said’s birthday, we also had a bonfire where we roasted vegetables and squishy creamy bright pink hotdogs…”Yum!” Also, we milked a cow! Johnny laughed hysterically the entire time, and the man who owned the cow was very amused with our reactions.

That’s it for now! Tune in later! “Kalee! Mmm…”

Bukakaire Team – Anna, Brittani, Diane, Johnny, Joseph, Said 

Buwoira: HIV Health Day

Hello again from Buwoira! We’re more than halfway through our stay in the village, and time is flying by. So much has happened in these past few weeks, including but not limited to: the implementation of emergency pee buckets, a team trip to Sipi Falls, the sickness and then health of our two lovely team leaders, and the (almost) mastery of our village chores.

But in addition to gaining arm muscle from lifting heavy jerry cans, we’ve also made major progress in completing our work in the villa ge. We’ve finished collecting follow up sanitation surveys and most significant change surveys, hosted a successful HIV day, and have begun focusing on conducting sensitizations in the community, including one at a local primary school.

Our biggest success thus far has definitely been our HIV health day. We were able to test and give results to 162 people for HIV and Malaria, not including children, as well as provide free Malaria treatment, HIV counseling, and immunizations for children. Ainslee and Fiona brought a group of children from our neighborhood to the event so they could get tested for Malaria, and shockingly, 11 out of 12 tested positive. We were heartbroken that these kids we love to play with every day were sick, but we are so glad that they were able to come, get tested, and get treatment. We heard from some of their parents that they have taken their full course of medication, and we’ve all noticed a change in their health as they play on our front porch. The youngest child, called Naka, used to sleep, cry, and lag behind the others, but now she is all smiles, chatty, and full of energy!

Deanna and Ruth watching drama group perform at HIV Day.

 Overall our event was a success. Not only did we test and give treatment to so many people, we also worked with an HIV drama group and completed our first sensitization on HIV. We’re so happy to have reached so many community members!

Ainslee and our neighborhood children, about to get tested at HIV Day.

While our work has been going well, we have also faced our fair share of challenges in the village. For one, we’ve all had trouble dealing with the tragic, sudden passing of our two beloved goat friends: Herbert and Sebastian. The two baby goats and their mother were eaten in the night by a wild dog, and now their brother, Godfrey, runs around the neighborhood alone. Hearing his lonely bleats has taken a toll on us all as we grieve. RIP to our dear friends.

Our VHTs have also brought some other, work related challenges to our attention. In a meeting with the five of them, they told us that they are often not taken seriously or respected by village members during their work. Many villagers are unaware of their purpose and who they are and question their authority when they tell them to make changes in health or sanitation. Our VHTs are essential and help to continue our work when we leave, so we’ve made raising awareness and respect for them a priority. During survey collection and sensitizations, we introduce them to the community and explain their role, making sure people understand their importance. We love our VHTs and continue to be impressed by their knowledge and hard work and hope that we can improve their position in the village!

With only three weeks left, we are all excited to hold more sensitizations and continue to make a difference in Buwoira. Between competitive bouts of Monkey in the Middle, discussions about food, and chapters of our favorite books, we’ll be mobilizing for our next education session, practicing skits, and making sure our local leaders have tippy taps. 

Itanda Primary School sensitization, interns teaching hand washing song.

Toodaloo—Buwoira out! Xoxo

Nabirere A: A successful HIV Outreach Day

         

        This past Wednesday we held our HIV Outreach day in collaboration with St. Mary’s Hospital. While we focused primarily on HIV, there was also de-worming and immunizations for children as well as malaria tests and treatment available for anyone. During these events, UVP provides testing and counseling along with skits performed by a drama group and a sensitization given by our team, The day started slow, “village time” struck again, and the vaccines, de-worming pills and condoms were not available initially. However, everything eventually settled into place and the day picked up when testing began.

            The highlight of the day came in the afternoon when we mobilized with drama group. To drum up extra excitement, we loaded into the back of their pickup truck and danced and chanted, “Nabirere A, awo kumusigiticet!” or “Nabirere A, go to the mosque!” We quickly amassed a small army of children who followed us to the mosque for the skits. The drama group began with traditional dancing and songs about HIV. Some of our team members were pulled into the dance circle, and even though our hip shaking abilities paled in comparison to the drama dancers, the community seemed to really enjoy us and several people have told us they are looking forward to our next show. As much as they liked the dancing, the drama group really captured the crowd’s attention. Despite the “heavy” nature of the topic, the drama group had the crowd laughing a lot. The drunken fool character seemed to be a particular crowd favorite.

            Our team’s sensitization was the last act of the day. We went over the basics; what is HIV, how it is transmitted, signs and symptoms, prevention methods, how to live positively if you’re HIV positive, and a Q&A session. The community asked a lot of good questions, mostly about the routes of transmission. For example, could bed bugs infect people or how long the virus could survive outside the body? Overall, out team really enjoyed the day and we think it was a great success; we tested 148 people for HIV and many others for malaria. We hope the community learned something from the day and our sensitization, but we will be holding other sensitization sessions in the upcoming weeks to reinforce the key messages about HIV.