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RHU AND PARTNERS HOST THE UK ALL PARTY PARLIAMENTARY GROUP
RHU AND PARTNERS HOST A STUDY TOUR FOR THE UK ALL PARTY PARLIAMENTARY GROUP ON POPULATION, DEVELOPMENT & REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH
By Fortunate Kagumaho
A snap shot of the visit: LR; Jackson Chekweko attending to the head of the delegation. In the middle, Baroness at an RHU outreach. Hon Mp Luwero speaking to the Boda Boda men at the outreach
Earlier this month, Reproductive Health Uganda (RHU) and partners (Mariestopes and UNFPA) hosted the UK all party parliamentary group for a study tour. The team had an opportunity to visit the Uganda parliament, Ministry of Health and also some of our implementation sites
The visiting team was represented by Baroness Sugg. Baroness, a UK Parliamentarian, House of Lords and leader of the UK Parliamentarians delegation, said both Uganda and the UK need to support issues of women and girls, for the growth and development of both countries.
Baroness shared a tweet about her visit to the RHU outreach site
“We visited a busy UKAid supported RHU-WISH2ACTION clinic in rural Luwero. They run multiple education sessions every day – designed for youth, women only, men only, couples and general health education” Reported Baroness on her verified twitter handle.
She noted that the UK had developed an international development strategy, which among other highlights commitment made on programs on global health.
“We need to support their (women and girls) empowerment, prevent violence against women and girls and also help to educate girls. Our foreign secretary has made a commitment for more funding towards women and girls especially on issues of child marriages and female genital mutilation,” Baroness said.
Dr. Charles Ayume, the chairperson Parliamentary committee on health, told the meeting that there is need to invest in quality and healthy population for the development and growth of respective economies.
In response about the impact of COVID19 on the projects and how RHU handled, Dr Annet Nagudi (Project Director –WISH2ACTION) said,
“We experienced reduction in the number of clients at static service delivery points at the beginning of the lockdown. Team Resilience and positivity kept the project team going.” Said Dr Nagudi. “Travel clearances thanks to great collaboration with Ministry of Health -Uganda and the Districts, made our work even easier.” She added
“Our RHU team integrated COVID I9 in SBCC messaging and Budget adaptation thanks to donor flexibility which facilitated smooth continuity. We also RHU set up COVID 19 response team that guided continuity of services. We adopted National SOPs and disseminated these to all service delivery points. Community Outreach services and training of VHTs to deliver DMPA-SC facilitated continued access to Services.” Dr Nagudi said
Women’s Integrated Sexual Health Lot 2 Project (WISH2ACTION) is IPPFs flagship project aiming to transform the lives of millions of women and girls. Funded by The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), WISH2ACTION seeks to provide integrated and holistic reproductive healthcare to 2.2M additional users of contraception across 15 countries in Africa and South Asia from 2018 to 2022.
In Uganda, the project is implemented through its 6 consortium partners (Reproductive Health Uganda IPPF’s Member Association in Uganda, Marie Stopes International Uganda, International Rescue Committee, Development Media International, Humanity and Inclusion and Options working in 77 districts of Uganda aims to increase access to family planning services of the most marginalized including young people, people living in poverty and people with disabilities.
In collaboration with the Reproductive Health Directorate and other stakeholders such as community leaders, policy maker and CSOs the programme works towards enhancing a supportive legal, financial and policy framework for sustainable family planning and a conducive environment for SRHR for all women and girls so that they face fewer risks during pregnancy and childbirth.
Fortunate Kagumaho is the Communications Coordinator at Reproductive Health Uganda
Menstrual health needs surge among vulnerable people in Uganda
Uganda – The 2021 outbreak of violence in the Equatorial region of South Sudan has displaced inside South Sudan, nearly two million people while outside the country there are now over two million South Sudanese refugees, mainly in Ethiopia, Sudan, and Uganda. Many have fears of imminent attack or struggle with food insecurity, sexual reproductive health issues, trauma, and menstrual health among young girls and women. People were forced by over 35,000 to flee to Uganda, roughly 75 percent of refugees from South Sudan are women and children.
Women and girls displaced by conflict face extraordinary hardships in most refugee camps and urban areas of Uganda. Many endure grave risks, including gender-based violence, which can escalate in humanitarian settings. Most are thrust into poverty – cut off from education and life-saving health services, including menstrual health.
Displacement exacts another huge toll on women and girls. In the refugee camps and Uganda’s urban areas, their most intimate and taboo health needs are often overlooked, to devastating effect.
“I had my first period here at the settlement,” said Joyce Tabaria, 12, whose family now lives in the Ayillo II settlement, home to over 39,000 refugees. “I had no idea what was happening. For me, that day was sad and shameful.”
Stigmas surrounding menstruation have existed across cultures in Uganda, also affecting indigenous people and history has it that most people in the community neglect or don’t care about issues of menstrual hygiene. And it’s not uncommon for women and girls to internalize these destructive myths.
A report published by International Rescue Committee (IRC) earlier this year details the extent to which lack of menstrual care, period shame, and misinformation reinforce gender discrimination, rendering women and girls vulnerable to poverty, violence, and harmful practices.
The IRC report reads, “Out of the 79% women and girls that indicate experiencing menstrual pain, only 28% have access to pain killers. While right and adequate menstrual health hygiene (MHH) information are limited. For school girls, a major source of information is schools (61%), peers (45%), workmates (37%), and CSOs/NGOs (27%)”.
In Uganda, the idea that menstruating women and girls are unclean contributes to their exclusion not only from family life but also from education and employment.
Dr. Peter Ibembe, Reproductive Health Uganda (RHU) Director of Programs says that in some places, isolation and expulsion from the home can be dangerous, exposing women and girls to extreme weather and sexual violence.
“In others, the onset of menstruation is associated with child marriage, which heightens the risk of adolescent pregnancy and life-threatening complications before, during, and after childbirth” says Dr Ibembe.
According to some vulnerable refugees and displaced people in Uganda, displacement magnifies these conditions.
“When I’m menstruating, I usually use strips of absorbent cloth, but in the settlement, it is difficult to get this cloth,” Hellen Aleyo in Kasese told RHU.
The unmet needs for sexual and reproductive health services intensify for women and girls in exile. Refugees need to receive adequate care and access to dignity kits in the settlements.
Harmful conditions in evacuation sites can wreak havoc on women’s sexual and reproductive health, while lack of access to hygiene supplies limits their mobility and heightens their vulnerability to sexual violence. Girls who do not have the ability to manage their menstrual health are also at greater risk of missing school or dropping out entirely.
Hellen Furaha, is the recipient of one of the sexual reproductive health and rights (SRHR), menstrual health training, and dignity kits distributed to women and girls in the Muhookya internally displaced people’s settlement in the Kasese district. The kits contain essential hygiene items such as sanitary pads, underclothes, soap, toothbrushes, and toothpaste.
As we celebrate menstrual health month 2022, it is important to note that RHU works with partners SRHR Alliance with support from Rutgers to deliver dignity kits to women and girls around Uganda in schools and in women’s and girls’ safe spaces. These safe spaces provide more than sexual and reproductive health services.
Aldon Walukamba G, the author, is the RHU Media Advocacy and Documentation Coordinator.
Child bride and fistula survivor becomes an advocate for change
Uganda : Rachael Wotali, was just a teenager, married at 17, when she nearly died in childbirth.
It was the year 2015 in eastern Uganda’s Iganga District. Wotali, as a young bride, may have been biologically unprepared for motherhood.
Her labor was extended and blocked, which may have been fatal. Her access to emergency treatment was also critically hampered. She recalls her mother yelling with the health care provider over their extended wait for help.
Unfortunately, the baby died at birth, leaving Wotali with an obstetric fistula, a hole in the birth canal that rendered her incontinent and exposed to a variety of other medical issues, including infections.
“I never enjoyed being a woman in marriage since I had this condition,” she later recalled. “It was tough to live.”
Today, the 23rd April 2022 is International Day to Put an End to Obstetric Fistulas. Fistulas are one of the most dangerous and devastating delivery injuries, and they are virtually totally avoidable. Access to competent maternal health care, particularly Caesarean sections to treat obstructed labor, can save both women’s and their kids’ lives and health.
Although the prevalence of obstetric fistula in Uganda stands at two percent, a 2016 study by the Ministry of Health estimates 200,000 women are living with fistula, and 1,900 new cases occur each year.
Yet more than two million women in the developing world are estimated to be living with this condition. Its persistence is a sign that health and protection systems are failing women and girls.
Wotali lived with an obstetric fistula for six years. In that time, she had a son and a daughter. But, like many fistula survivors, she was isolated, enduring ridicule if she left home. She was unable to do community work, attend funerals or visit church, she told Reproductive Health Uganda (RHU), while receiving family planning.
Nothing appeared to work towards improving the situation. “Traditional herbalists tried everything, and we had been told to do lots of things but the condition was never healed,” she recalled. “When you are in that situation, you try almost everything.”
But one day, one year ago, her sister was chatting with community members at a nearby borehole. Someone mentioned that a woman in the district had received treatment for chronic urinary incontinence. It turned out a fistula repair camp was taking place at Iganga district hospital.
She rushed to tell her mother.
Over 25 women received treatment during the government – private partnership supported event, including Wotali.
“I am now dry. I have no problem,” Wotali said. “This is how a woman should be.”
Many of the women, like her, have endured the condition a long time. One Alowo, lived with fistula for 28 years in Mayuge district but was also treated.
We all need to take action against obstetric fistula. It is estimated that two per cent of women in the country have experienced an obstetric fistula, according to a 2016 survey.
Since her treatment, Wotali has become an advocate for fistula survivors, helping multiple women receive repairs.
She says she still thinks back to the fateful day that she learned there was hope and help for women with obstetric fistula.
“That morning when my sister went to draw water saved my life,” she said.
Aldon Walukamba G, the author, is the RHU Media Advocacy and Documentation Coordinator.
Girls fleeing from FGM in Uganda are directed to Safety
Uganda, Kampala – “With no safe houses- schools, girls will be genitally mutilated,” said 21- year old Ruth Chelangat a community mobiliser, who mobilizes girls against female genital mutilation (FGM) in Kwosir sub county in Kween district of Uganda’s largely rural Sebei region.
“You can’t receive protection in the neighborhood during the cutting season,” she stated.
In areas of Uganda where FGM is performed, the “cutting season” usually coincides with school holidays, as it is this year. FGM, which includes damaging or modifying the female genitalia for non-medical reasons, can have a variety of severe health repercussions for girls who are exposed to it, including pain, infections, hemorrhaging, and death.
But when Betty Cheboi, was 22 years old, she implored her parents not to have her cut. They didn’t listen, and she had no safe place to run to. She nearly bled to death from her wounds.
Afterwards, she made her close relatives promise not to cut her younger sisters. For Cheboi, it was the beginning of a lifetime of activism to end FGM.
After receiving training from the Right Here, Right Now II (RHRN II) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), several youth teams in the Karamoja and Sebei regions are spreading the word that girls can find refuge at the safe houses operated in Amudat and Kween districts through, school programs, young people’s safe spaces at health centers, and community outreach.
“this is part of our effort to change negative values, norms and rituals abusing the enjoyment of sexual reproductive health and rights, in addition to young people’s gender justice,” Cheboi said.
However, according to Joseph Cheptegei, Kwosir sub-county Community Development Officer, when a cry for aid comes in, whether from a girl at risk or a concerned community member, identifying the girl can be difficult. This is due to the geography in the Sebei area, extensive unmapped land in Karamoja, and a lack of connectivity, with settlements of up to 5,000 people without plots and never appearing on Google maps.
“We are coming together to widen our network to unite people against FGM from across the Karamoja and Sebei regions,” said Cheptegei.
RHRN II, UNFPA through Reproductive Health Uganda (RHU), has organized the volunteer network’s efforts to teach young people so that activists on the ground can better protect girls since 2016.
Samuel Musani, RHRN II officer in Sebei region says that trained volunteer mobilisers, peer educators and young advocates comb through villages of rural Sebei and Karamoja regions, tracing for girls at risk or threat of FGM. They are then referred to safe houses and schools constructed by Action Aid – Uganda, Ministry of Gender, Labor and Social Development (MGLSD).
RHU works with government and other private partners like Reach a Hand Uganda (RAHU), Action Aid and Kapchorwa Civil Society Association.
During the 2021, over 2,000 volunteers in over 60 sub counties were trained under the RHRN II and UNFPA programmes by RHU and its partners.
As more and more communities abandon FGM, programming needs to zero in on remaining hotspots, noted Jackson Chekweko, RHU Executive Director.
When the cutting season is complete, most girls return home after two months. Volunteers, community social welfare personnel, and specially trained police engage with families and communities to alter attitudes, a step toward changing the societal norms that maintain FGM.
“We talk to parents,” said Chebot. “We show them that FGM has effects and is illegal in Uganda.”
Girls can return home if their parents promise to honor their requests not to be cut off and to help them in continuing their education. Every three months, the program does a check-in with the girls.
Girls whose families refuse to reconcile are housed in safe houses, where they get therapy and continue their education. Chebot, on the other hand, does not give up attempting to persuade their families to alter their beliefs.
“We are not stopping,” she said. “We keep visiting those families, talking to them so we can have reconciliation.”
While officiating the anti FGM day celebrations in Kapchorwa, on 20th April 2022, Uganda’s State Minister for Gender and Culture Peace Regis Mutuuzo, pledged that the 2010 anti FGM law will be revised to curb the new trends, that aid FGM to be done in countries neighboring Uganda.
Aldon Walukamba G, the author, is the RHU Media Advocacy and Documentation Coordinator.
Ugandan Youths Serve as Gender Justice and SRHR Advocates
There is hope that gender justice, sexual reproductive health, and rights (SRHR) initiatives in Uganda will enjoy wider acceptance by having young people act as “envoys.”
The youths in the Rwenzori region of Uganda are taking the lead in this by forming groups and preaching the SRHR and gender justice gospel, rehabilitating school dropouts and drug and alcohol abusers, mostly aged between 10 and 24 years.
Mary Karungi, 22, of Kaguma village, received training in sensitizing and mobilizing young people about their sexuality, reproductive health rights, and how to avoid emergency situations caused by unplanned sex encounters.
This was after several young people in her village, some of whom were under the age of 18, became pregnant, married, and dropped out of school.
She believes that the time has come for young people to take the lead in educating others about the dangers of unplanned sex, pregnancy, and marriage.
“We are doing some work in the villages, we talk to young people about body changes and how to act when they manifest, use family planning for those who are sexually active, and also demystify the negative norms and values that encourage teenage pregnancy and early marriages,” Karungi said.
In the last three months, Karungi has reached out to 86 young people in her village.
Rachael Mbonabana, Kicwamba Health Youth Development Group Chairperson in Kabarole district, says more than 800 young people have been approached by their group of 12 members. They go to schools, churches, mosques, playgrounds, and other communal gatherings with a message about positive living by empowering youths to claim their SRHR and gender justice. They also offer free condom distribution, sexuality education, and other messages promoting positive gender equality norms and values.
But Hassan Sebugwaawo, a Right Here Right Now-2 coalition (RHRN-2) project officer for Reproductive Health Uganda (RHU) in the Rwenzori region, says 144 young people in 12 groups of 12 young people each were empowered to saturate the gospel of gender justice, equality, and SRHR among young people.
Youth of Destiny is another young people’s group in Fort Portal City, Kabarole district, making strides towards emancipating young people about their SRHR and gender equality positive norms and values.
Brain Murungi, a spokesperson for Youth of Destiny, said they have rehabilitated a formerly 12-year-old girl who had been married off during the COVID-19 lockdown and a former school dropout, a boy. The two are now studying at Mukungwe primary school. The girl enrolled in family planning because she is sexually active.
Claire Kagaaju, a Youth Advisory Committee (YAC) Chairperson embraces SRHR and Gender justice training for young people that is accelerating the spread of SRHR and gender equality messages in a more diversified manner among young people in Tooro region.
Dr. Peter Ibembe, (RHU), Director of Programs, grins with optimism that when more skills are continually imparted to youths regarding gender justice and SRHR, several young people will avoid early sex, pregnancy, and marriage and live a better and more meaningful life. The youths are trained in positioning themselves in various working groups in the public and private sector to push for access to SRHR, gender justice, and family planning methods, including the use of contraceptives.
Jackson Chekweko, RHU Executive Director, believes young people should continue to receive training from SRHR and gender justice professionals on communication, resource mobilization, and advocacy techniques. The youth envoys will then use these skills to lead discussions among local, religious, and cultural leaders to change bad norms and values affecting gender equality, SRHR, and justice.
“Emphasis to the youths is geared towards firming up civil society, so we work in coalition, to have the participation of not only youths, but also religious leaders and community leaders to push acceptance that takes into account the social, cultural, and religious contexts and work with an understanding of that to develop programs and activities even in rural areas of the country,” said Jackson Chekweko.
The RHRN-2 coalition comprises seven members including Reproductive Health Uganda (RHU), SRHR Alliance, Sexual Minorities Uganda (SMUG), Hope Mbale, CEHURD, Reach a Hand Uganda (RAHU), and UNYPA.
Aldon Walukamba G, the author, is the RHU Media Advocacy and Documentation Coordinator.
What Tuberculosis Means for Maternal Reproductive Health
Joan Kaunhe [not her actual name] was diagnosed with tuberculosis (TB) during her first pregnancy, which resulted in a miscarriage, two years ago. She got unhappy as a result of the TB drugs’ negative effects, and she had difficulties eating. She and her husband were diagnosed with HIV a year later, during her second pregnancy. He passed away early this year, not long after his wife was diagnosed with tuberculosis for the second time. Despite the fact that she has completed her second round of therapy, her condition has caused her to abandon her employment. She and her children are supported by her mother-in-pension. law’s She does not inform anybody in her family or community about her HIV and tuberculosis because she is scared her mother-in-law would reject her and her children discriminately.
Patients like Joan are seen every day by those of us at Reproductive Health Uganda (RHU) who practice infectious disease treatment while providing integrated sexual reproductive health and rights services in TB-endemic countries like Uganda. Her narrative is, indeed, the story of tuberculosis among vulnerable women of reproductive age. Pregnant women are more vulnerable to tuberculosis, but we don’t know the best approaches to prevent or manage the disease in these women. Even the most fundamental facts that we have able to establish are unknown to a huge majority of health care practitioners in TB-endemic nations’ rural and disadvantaged urban settings. For example,
As we commemorate International Tuberculosis Day on March 24, 2022, under the theme “The Clock is Ticking”, it conveys the sense that Uganda is running out of time to act on the commitments to end TB made by global leaders. In women, TB is most common during the reproductive years.
Uganda is one of the 30 World Health Organization (WHO) designated countries with a high burden of TB and HIV. In 2019, the estimated incidence rate for TB was 200 per 100,000 people and the mortality rate was 35 per 100,000 people.
According to the Ministry of Health in Uganda, the TB disease burden stands at 3.5 infected persons per 100,000, of which two of these are women between 15 and 49 years of age.
Anicia Filda, Reproductive Health Uganda (RHU) Gulu branch in charge, says that women are twice as likely to develop TB around the time of pregnancy than at any other time in their lives.
“If a woman develops TB when she is pregnant, she has a 20% risk of death,” Filda said.
TB is a major cause of maternal mortality, especially among HIV-infected women. Pregnant women with TB also have a higher risk of pregnancy complications, such as miscarriage, hemorrhage, and infection.
If a woman develops TB when she is pregnant, her infant has a 38% risk of death.
Infants born to TB-infected mothers are at a higher risk of preterm delivery and poor birth weight. HIV-positive moms who have tuberculosis are twice as likely as those who do not have tuberculosis to transfer HIV to their child during pregnancy. In neonates, tuberculosis infections develop faster than in adults. Even children under the age of five are eight times more likely to die if they live in the same house as a mother with tuberculosis.
Aldon Walukamba G, the author, is the RHU Media Advocacy and Documentation Coordinator.
In Uganda, acceptance of family planning is increasing
“It’s preferable to have one child than many,” Nyekuch, 28, at the Pagirinya health Centre III family planning section in Adjumani district, explained.
This is the counsel she provides to both men and women, yet she has had a totally different experience.
She married at the age of 14 and gave birth to her first child a year later, before the war in Sudan forced her to Uganda as a refugee. Before then, she was not required, like many other child brides, to seek an education, thus she never learned to read or write. She now has five children, all of whom she wishes to have a totally different destiny than she had.
“I hope that when my daughter is at least 22 years old, she will make the correct decisions and become a mother,” Nyekuch remarked. “By then, she’ll have completed her university education.” All of my children, I hope, will be able to receive an education.”
Nyekuch embodies the plight of Uganda’s vulnerable village women in many ways. According to the 2020 State of World Population report, the country’s fertility rate is five (4.6) children per woman, and on average 25% of women give birth while still teens.
The maternal mortality rate in the country is high, in part because health risks increase as women have more pregnancies. According to a recent joint United Nations study, over 368 women die during giving birth for every 100,000 owing to pregnancy-related causes.
Contraceptives reduce the risk of maternal injury and death by lowering the number of unplanned pregnancies, which account for 43% of all pregnancies in Uganda. Couples can also determine the appropriate family size for their situation by using family planning. Despite this, many people are wary of using family planning.
“This is due to a lack of comprehensive information, inadequate counselling skills among health service providers, limited access to contraception, users’ fear of side effects, and misinterpretation of religious doctrine regarding family planning,” Dr. Peter Ibembe, Reproductive Health Uganda Director of Programs, explained.
Some cultural influences, such as the inclination and desire to have a big family, by some couples also play a key role.
Advance Family Planning (AFP) initiative is working closely with the Reproductive Health Uganda (RHU), Ministry of Health to ensure a reliable supply of contraceptives to government health facilities. RHU also trains health workers and provides technical support to health facilities, like the family planning units at health centers in Uganda, through its 20 clinics and branches spread across the country.
RHU, in partnership with AFP is also increasing the family planning choices available to women, but also executing out advocacy activities among policy makers, media and the community. At the centre in Uganda’s vulnerable communities, women are able to select from a variety of safe, reliable contraceptive methods, including condoms, pills, injections, implants and bi-tubal litigation or vasectomy.
Contraception is steadily gaining traction in this traditionally conservative society. According to a government survey, barely 30% of married Ugandan women employed contemporary techniques of family planning in 2016. As per Performance Monitoring for Action (PMA) reports, 40% of married women utilized contraception by 2020.
Most of the women Nyekuch knows take injections, implants, or tablets, according to her. “Only a handful couples I know employ alternative ways. I, too, utilize the injection “she stated
However, there is still considerable skepticism. Contraceptive implants, for example, are feared by many people, despite the fact that they are safe and provide long-term protection against unintended pregnancy. “People are reluctant to use them, and husbands won’t let them because they’re worried their wives won’t be able to have children again,” Rhoda Namukwana, a registered midwife at RHU Bwaise branch, stated.
Nkonanyi, was also visiting the RHU outreach family planning Centre in Kyangwali refugee camp. She was married at only 13, and her first baby was born the following year. Now, at age 25, she has two children and relies on family planning.
“We barely scrape by,” Nkonanyi explained, revealing that the family relies on her husband’s salary as a community digger to make ends meet. “If I send my son to school, we will want more funds for his school uniform, books, notebooks, and other necessities.” That’s something we can’t afford.”
She wants both of her children to expect more from life. For instance, she hopes her daughter will not get married until she is 20, and Nkonanyi herself wants to wait before having more children.
“I’d like to wait at least three years before having another child.”
Aldon Walukamba G, the author, is the RHU Media Advocacy and Documentation Coordinator.
WE ARE LOOKING FOR A FINANCE MANAGER
Reproductive Health Uganda (RHU) invites applications from highly skilled, experienced and motivated persons to fill the position of Finance Manager.
How to apply
- Submit by post or hand-deliver application letters and attach certified copies of academic transcripts
- A detailed Curriculum Vitae and other relevant documents as well the contact addresses (e-mail) of 3 referees including their telephone contacts to:
The Executive Director, Reproductive Health Uganda, P.O. Box 10746 Kampala Or hand-deliver at: RHU Head Office, Plot 2, Katego Road, Kamwokya (Opposite Uganda Museum) Or send applications to the following email address hr@rhu.or.ug.
Closing Date: Friday 15th April, 2022
Only shortlisted applicants will be contacted
NB: RHU is an equal opportunity employer and encourages women to apply.
Reproductive Health Uganda strengthens disaster emergency preparedness plans
Reproductive Health Uganda (RHU) has expanded its plans to prepare employees to respond in times of man-made and natural catastrophes in order to deliver better services to Ugandans.
The need to improve RHU staff awareness of how to deal with crises was recognized by Dr. Peter Ibembe, RHU Director of Programs, and Annet Kyarimpa, RHU Manager of Safe Motherhood, which led to the planning.
“It’s critical to recognize that an organization is prone to calamities and to plan ahead of time,” Dr. Ibembe added.
According to Kyarimpa, getting the relevant information, contributing, and planning for disaster preparation requires a coordinated effort on the part of the organization’s departments, units, and directorates (EPP).
When an emergency occurs, this will advise RHU on what to offer and how to provide integrated sexual reproductive health and rights (SRHR) services.
“Common knowledge of duties and responsibilities in humanitarian and disaster response is crucial for workers,” Annet Kyarimpa explains.
For this reason, more than ten RHU employees gathered in Mbarara for a week to prepare an EPP that would help the company respond more efficiently in times of disaster.
The services of Seema Manohar, an EPP consultant, were obtained with the help of the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the International Planned Parenthood Federation – Africa Regional (IPPFAR).
Seema underlines the need of having a separate strategy for each crisis, whether it is long-term or short-term.
But, as Seema pointed out, “we must remember that emergency response is a process and that we must always be prepared, since how quickly you respond to a tragedy counts.”
Edward Kiggundu, RHU Monitoring and Evaluation Coordinator, noted shortage of resources like as water, land, pasture, firewood, and food as sources of conflict among the vulnerable, underserved, and disadvantaged groups that RHU seeks to assist while delivering a study report. This he says affects delivery, access and follow up for those in need of integrated SRHR services from RHU.
RHU personnel and the consultant finished the emergency preparation planning meeting by putting up a draft document that will be used to direct operations during an emergency.
Aldon Walukamba G, the author, is the RHU Media Advocacy and Documentation Coordinator.
Family Guidance Association of Ethiopia appreciates RHU for empowering youths
Today’s youth in Uganda face numerous obstacles, ranging from persistent poverty to entrenched inequities. Yet, if concerned leaders act now, a major remedy is just around the corner.
Demographics are changing in many of Uganda’s poor, emerging regions, with a large number of young people entering the workforce and a decreasing number of dependents. These are possible indicators of economic growth that can occur when a larger proportion of the population is employed, allowing households to save and invest more money. These reforms, when implemented on a large scale, have the potential to lift entire communities out of poverty.
However, there will be no dividend if Ugandans do not invest in young people’s health, education, jobs, and human rights at the outset.
At a high-level meeting with visitors from the Family Guidance Association of Ethiopia (FGAE) at RHU in Kampala, Jackson Chekweko, Executive Director of Reproductive Health Uganda (RHU), said, “By tapping into the massive transformative capabilities of youth, entire nations stand to improve their prospects.”
“We need to invest more resources in teaching young people to be innovators, entrepreneurs, and change agents,” says Chekweko. At the event, youth leaders echoed Jackson Chekweko’s call to action.
“Let young people contribute with our skills, our education, our opinions, and our active engagement,” said Daisy Kandole, the RHU’s Youth Assistant.
Efforts to empower, educate, and employ young people have the potential to have a widespread impact throughout society.
Mohammed Katabalwa, the RHU Youth Action Movement (YAM) Chairperson and a 25-year-old from Kampala, Uganda, is a striking example of this. Struggles characterize his neighborhood, which is plagued by poverty, high rates of sexually transmitted illnesses, and a lack of school-aged children.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Katabalwa had his share of hardships.
“I was just like any other young kid who wasn’t attending school, but the lockdown made it impossible for them to earn money,” he told FGAE officials.
He subsequently promoted the idea of creating liquid soap to RHU’s youth section, and he is now a role model for other young people.
This is because he participated in RHU’s youth social enterprise model training two years ago, a program that teaches young people about health and how to start small businesses.
RHU’s youth are also given the opportunity to communicate about social enterprises and sexual reproductive health and rights (SRHR) using digital channels .
RHU is commended by Getachew Habtie, FGAE Executive Director, for its strong work relationships among personnel and for developing youth.
Getachew remarked that “RHU embraces the diversity of young people and empowers them for a better and brighter future.”
FGAE YAM Chairperson Hawi Shemeles, on the other hand, was equally pleased that young people could obtain services and training at the RHU office.
“It’s incredibly convenient to have all of the offices in one location. The RHU personnel, clinic, and youth center are all in one location for youth. This attracts young people, “Hawi explained.
The FGAE team of five is in Uganda for a three-day visit to RHU clinics in Katego and Luweero in order to benchmark and discuss best practices between RHU and FGAE. The two organisations offer SRHR services at a national level and are affiliated to the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) Africa region.
Aldon Walukamba G, the author, is the RHU Media Advocacy and Documentation Coordinator.