By Gareema Agarwal | Director of Partnerships
In the past few months, both GlobeMed at UCLA and the Mpoma Community HIV/AIDS Initiative (MCHI) have undergone exciting developments.
Construction of the Nsaanvu borehole has recently been completed. An opening ceremony for the new borehole was hosted by the MCHI members; since its construction, the Nsaanvu borehole has been operating well, and members of the Nsaanvu community now have access to clean water. After lots of collaboration with water user committee members, Peter, the manager of the Mpoma Community HIV/AIDS Initiative, has selected the Nkooki village to be the next site of borehole construction. The water source is scheduled to be completed this summer.
During March 2019, the GlobeMed at UCLA chapter held their annual executive board elections, and a new team has been selected. For the past two months, the new board has been transitioning into their roles and brainstorming ideas to further strengthen our project for the upcoming year. For the next few months, they will be promoting GlobeMed and recruiting new members, so that our 2019-2020 chapter can be assembled by October 2019.
As mentioned in the previous report, the 2019 Grassroots Onsite Work (GROW) team has been selected. Since November, this team of four students has been preparing to work on ground in the Nama Sub County of Uganda to monitor and evaluate the community’s projects onsite. The team will arrive onsite mid-June, and will spend the following seven weeks working closely with our partner.
While the team is there this summer, they will travel to the villages where borehole construction has been funded, and assess the local communities’ ability to maintain the water source and uphold safe water access, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) practices. While on these outreaches, the team will also collect feedback on how to better reach the needs of the community and better reinforce WASH education. The team is scheduled to do two outreaches per week, amounting to twelve outreaches total. Additionally, the GROW team will be teaching elementary school students at Johnson Nkosi Memorial Primary School about WASH and reproductive health twice a week. The GROW team has hopes of expanding the Sanitary Pad Project while onsite by implementing surveys and discussion seminars to better grasp and tackle the issues that the girls face as they reach puberty. While onsite, the GROW team will also monitor the Project Income Generation project as progressions are being made in the pilot city of Waluga. During their final week onsite, the GROW team and the MCHI team will host the biannual meeting for water user committees, an event where they will discuss strategies of community empowerment, water source maintenance, and healthy hygiene practices.
The GROW team plans to document their experiences and the projects’ progress through blogs while they are onsite. Their blogs can be found here:
https://globemedatuclagrow.wordpress.com/
Both the Mpoma Community HIV/AIDS Initiative and GlobeMed at UCLA are excited to see what progress will be made in the coming months!
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