Promote Maternal & Sexual Health in N. Uganda

To our friends, benefactors, and supporters:

Apwoyo Matek!

Apwoyo Matek (pronounced uh-foy-oh ma-teck) means "thank you very much” as well as “you’re most welcome” in Acholi, the local language of Northern Uganda. For five weeks, the grassroots onsite work (GROW) team was working in Gulu, Uganda with our partner organization Gulu Women’s Economic Development and Globalization (GWED-G). As we traveled to rural villages and health centers, everyone that we met—from the district chairperson to HIV+ mothers—greeted us with this spirit of warmth and kindness. HIV+ mothers enrolled in the Mama Club expressed gratitude for our mama kit program; the mama kits that we bring each year are donated by Delivering Hope and contain all the items necessary to deliver a baby safely in the absence of a hospital. Women who receive mama kits, we found, are also better equipped to be treated at health centers, where medical supplies are often in short supply. Thanks to our partnership with health center staff, expectant mothers in the Mama Club receive antenatal care and support with living with HIV. Importantly, for those enrolled in the program, the rate of mother-to-child HIV transmission is significantly reduced.

In addition to directly working with HIV+ women and strengthening the capacity of health center staff, our project also empowers village health team members (VHTs) and HIV+ caregivers. VHTs mobilize their community for a variety of health services; caregivers are elder HIV+ women who focus on counseling newly-diagnosed HIV+ women. Both are elected, voluntary positions that we promote by hosting trainings and providing compensation in the form of soap and salt. For many of the HIV+ women that we talked to, a caregiver or VHT was the one who provided the most meaningful source of support and comfort in the midst of community stigmatization.

Based on the feedback that we collected from the community, we hope to improve and expand our project even further. Almost every woman we talked to asked for either seeds to plant crops, goats to generate income, or money for school fees. In the next year, expanding the income-generating component of our project will be our top priority. Our goal is to economically empower 200 HIV+ women by sponsoring four community gardens with seeds and microfinance trainings. And, after the success of our pilot male peer education group in Coke parish, we are excited to officially launch our male role model program. Two men from each village that we work with will be selected and trained on gender-based violence prevention and HIV/AIDS prevention. We will also continue to strengthen the capacity of health workers, VHTs, and caregivers by continuing to host trainings and workshops. Now that the Ugandan Ministry of Health is releasing a new guidebook, we will host a conference on the new set of guidelines in 2016.

Much remains to be done and, to accomplish all of this, we need your help. Thanks to your support we have witnessed a measurable impact in the lives of HIV+ women. Last year, with the help of VHTs, health center staff, and local leaders, 8 gender-based violence and HIV/AIDS awareness sessions were held in 8 parishes of Amuru with more than 300 people attending. Next year, we hope to improve the effectiveness, attendance, and scope of these sessions even more. Visit our page at GlobalGiving and our Wordpress for more information about our project. To learn more about our experience in Uganda, please check out this grassroots change video we made for GWED-G and our GROW 2015 blog. With your continued support, we hope to integrate the needs and stories of the women we met into impactful change.