Greetings dear friends and development partners,
A few moments ago the year 2010 had just began and now we are already heading for the end of the second quarter of the year. Phew! The year is moving too fast. The FIFA soccer world cup has finally come to Africa and everyone is exited and looking forward to what many are predicting to be the best world cup ever. I predict that one of the African teams will reach the semi final, watch this space!
Work at Kawempe Home Care has been going on smoothly except for the constant fears that the country may run out of antiretroviral medicines due to reduced funding from development partners and end of projects as reported in the international and local media. Let’s pray that our Government can rise to the occasion and invest more in the health of its people.
When I look back and remember how being diagnosed with AIDS in the 90’s and early 2000’s was an immediate death sentence, the images of patients suffering in agony, wasting away on hospital beds and in their homes are still fresh in my mind. Thankfully with the introduction of Palliative care in Uganda in 1993, doctors and nurses were trained to provide good pain and relief of distressing symptoms to enable their patients to die with dignity. The death of so many youths at the time resulted into reduced gross domestic product for the country, break up of homes, AIDS orphans and other numerous socio-economic problems. Thankfully KHC has not yet had any shortage of antiretroviral medicines and we are extremely grateful to the Joint Clinical Research Centre (JCRC) and the Ministry of Health (National AIDS control program) for their continued provision of these valuable medicines to us.
Orphans and Vulnerable Children’s (OVC) Support
Well on a brighter note so many exciting things have been happening over the last quarter. One of our volunteers Mayte Rimmer secured a grant from the Danish embassy for our AIDS orphans and vulnerable children’s (OVC) program. The support has enabled us to buy a lot of child friendly stuff like toys, balls, swings, volleyball nets, board games, soccer and netball jerseys, computers, movies etc. These items are now being used by the teen’s club and pre-school children’s day care program. The children are really enjoying themselves and we are extremely grateful to the Danish embassy and Mayte for this wonderful support.
OCV Staff and the children make good use of the equipment donated.
Back to School
The children are now back at school fro their second term and thanks to the Home Care Education Support (HES) program 69 children are able to get school fees, scholastic materials, bags, shoes and extra clothes for casual wear. We are extremely grateful to all those who sponsor the children. A high school in Australia, the Homebush Boys’ High School is currently carrying out a fundraising drive to support the school fees for the children. The school has provided this support for the past two years.
The family of Mr. and Mrs. Witter in the United Kingdom has also graciously offered to provide school fees for twenty children this academic year. This is really wonderful news and the team is currently carrying out socio-evaluations to identify the children most in need of the fees. Thank you Mr & Mrs Witter.
Soroptomist group in Denmark
The maintenance of quality staff at KHC has been a big challenge over the past three years especially for the clinical team. A number of nurses and clinical officers have been recruited and trained to provide quality home based chronic HIV care. After working for at least a year, many of them become highly experienced and knowledgeable in caring for the patients and are wooed by bigger organizations who provide much bigger salaries and benefits. KHC therefore looses a number of good clinicians due to our low resource capacity. KHC is very thankfully to the Skjern-Tarm Soroptimist Club in Denmark who started providing salary support to our clinic coordinator Sarah for last year and have pledged for this year. Sarah was the first nurse and founder member of KHC.
Mayte Rimmer and Inger Darfolt bid farewell to KHC
Mayte Rimmer has been with KHC since we started and was our very first volunteer. She has built the HES program from scratch into a group of 69 children getting school fees support. She has been very keen on setting up policies and procedures, paying fees, buying scholastic materials and organizing children’s parties.
Still for the HES program, Mayte played an important role of assessing the children for school fees support and continuously visiting the children at their homes to check on their health and well being. When the children went back to school, she followed them up to make sure they performed well. She bought games and swings for the children and as well as uniforms for the golden vessels. She is also appreciated for securing a grant that was used to buy sportswear and a Television set for the OVCs. She is going to be dearly missed not only by the staff of KHC but also by the children. Mayte, thank you for all your support and the wonderful work you have done.
Auntie Inger as most children and staff of KHC call her has been volunteering for almost 18 months now. She helped set up and start our children’s day care program that is held every Wednesday at the clinic. She has with the support of her family and friends network in Norway, mobilized clothes for the children, medical equipment for the clinic, psychosocial support for vulnerable patients like food support, small grants etc. She has also set up great networks for selling beads in Denmark through the Lions Club of Norway, her family and friends. We will really miss her but promise to carry on the great work that she has started.
KHC organized a farewell party for the two volunteers where they were presented with gifts from the staff and certificates from the administration.
A Tribute to Cissy
One of our longest serving community volunteers and patient, Cissy passed away in April 2010 after a long illness. Cissy began helping out way back in September 2007 at the Kasangati out reach clinic which used to be at Joyce’s home. Cissy was a very resourceful lady and spent a great deal of her time providing emotional and psychosocial support to bed ridden patients in their homes.
During her illness her fellow volunteers also gave her the care and love that she had given others and by the time she passed away she was very peaceful. We will miss seeing her smile, watching her play with the day care children and going out with her for home visits.
May her soul rest in everlasting peace.
Volunteers needed
KHC has had a team of volunteers from The Great Generation/Barclay’s bank (UK), who spent 5 days training the management team on leadership, management, conflict resolution and marketing. The training was a huge success and we hope to see the new knowledge and skills being put to use.
KHC is always on the look out for volunteers with special skills to help our staff build their capacity and become better at their work. We are in need of a full time volunteer doctor who is keen on clinical work and operational research. She/he should have good interpersonal skills and willing to work in the community. If you know anyone who may be interested please ask them to send me an email at sguma08@gmail.com
“You are the hearts we are the hands”
