Healthy Families, Brighter Futures Family Planning

Thanks for your generousity, 6 village health team have reached more than 62
women in Gulu!

By Filder Anek – Medical officer in charge

With support from generous donors like you we were able to train 6 community health workers who we refer to as village health team (VHT) to serve in the community. They have been empowered to talk to women of child bearing age in the communities about family planning and reproductive health. Since the onset of the project, we have seen a rise in the number of women visiting the health centre for family planning services. Last month alone we saw a total of 62 women who were provided reproductive health education in the health centre and more were provided during our outreach days. 

The VHTs are targeting women of child bearing ages because of the high teenage pregancy rates, they will continue to conduct educational sessions.

All of the attendees at the outreach sessions receive vouchers referring them to Karin Medical Clinics for additional counseling and voluntary family planning services. Analysis of the referral log book revealed the training has made a positive impact on the number of new family planning users, resulting in an increase in family planning users amongst women of child bearing age.  

After the outreach sessions we have achieved an increase in clients using Karin Medical Centre services. A total of 62 women attended the outreach health education sessions. Of these attendees, 15 women visited Karin medical Centre clinics as new clients for family planning, reproducitve health services, such as prenatal and postnatal healthcare. According the referral log book, of the 15 clients successfully referred to Karin medical centre, 13 received family planning services for the first time.

As we anticipated, we have noted increased acceptance by the traditional women about the family planning needs. When the VHTs explain to them about family planning and reproductive health, Karin Medical Centre saw an increased acceptance by older women who did not understand family planning in the past and they were able to
explain to their daughters and to the even to their daughters-in-law. This will ultimately lead to increased access by young women to reproductive health services which will reduce maternal deaths.

We encourage you to read our updates on the project’s progress as the VHTs continue to host health education sessions in their communities, improving access to and use of life-saving reproductive health and family planning services.

Thank you again for supporting this amazing work!

Links:

• childcare development organisation uganda

Our clinic cannot serve everyone, because our focus is maternal and child health care. At the same time we do not also turn away the vulnerable patients like childern under five years old or expectant mothers. However, practicing our mission in the communities we serve is important to our organization. It's who we are!

Every week we carry out community outreaches, it is the task of
the village health team, the local leaders and the staff to decide which
community they will visit. It is also done on a needs basis, when the community
requests us to visit them; or sometimes we do random visits.

"Outreach activity is held on Thursdays of every week. And on this afternoon,
the health team went to the local village of Layik. It was a wonderful
experience to share time with this community and bring not only the healthcare
they need, but also to distribute to them mosquito nets. Everyone was very
happy - both the outreach team and the community members. Our team carried out
a health talk to these youth about their health needs. In addition to testing
and counseling, we donated mosquito nets to the mothers with children under
five years.

On this day we carried out testing to about 28 youths. We also
gave out 15 mosquito nets to mothers with children under five years.

It was a good day, because we allowed the youth to ask as many
questions as possible. They were relaxed and felt free to ask as they wished. We
later had a small drama and sang songs together, and they thanked us for our work.
This is not the last but the first of many visits. It was wonderful.

* * *

Friends!: Thanks, as always, for supporting our work in this community! HIV/AIDS is real and we need to continue carrying out sensitisation especially to the youth. Malaria is the biggest threat amongst the cases that we attend to in the health centre. We urge our donors to gift the children and expectant mothers especially with bed nets to reduce malaria in the community.

We  always wish you the best and thank you for your compassion and generosity.

Links:

• website