Advertisement
Published: August 18th 2018
Edit Blog Post
Terri and Chris with the administrator of Katooma Primary School. In May we started a fundraiser, asking for donations to help aid the two communities we visited during our community placements in Uganda. As we were split up in our placements, we divided the money evenly between our two groups. Brooke, Kari and Shania were sent to Rugazi community, and Chelsey, Chris, Cydnee, Gaby, Kylee, Terri and Stephanie were sent to Ruhija community. The following post will outline how we decided to spend our money.
Ruhija Community: For Ruhija community we were all interested in putting our money towards something sustainable, and were surprised how long it took us to come to a decision. We talked to lots of different community leaders to try and get a sense of what the community needed. We took this task very seriously, and wanted to make sure we were doing the best we could with the money raised.
While we were visiting schools in the community for various projects, some of the headmasters identified various issues. One issue was the inability for some families to pay for their children’s P7 exam. In Uganda in order for a child to receive credit for their primary school education, and to continue
Ruhija Community with the headmasters of Ruhija Community School where the chicken coup will be built. onto secondary school they must write a P7 exam. Many families may choose to not pay for this exam due to the cost, and because of this many children may even stop attending school in P6 if they already know they will not be given credit for P7. After going over the cost of the exam with the headmaster, we realized to us it was quite inexpensive, and we decided to fund P7 exams for the current P7 class at Katooma Primary School, and pre-pay the exam for the female students in P6 to try and encourage them to stay in school for P7.
Another school we visited in Ruhija was Ruhija Primary School. Compared to Katooma Primary School, which had recently received funding for renovations, Ruhija Primary School seemed to be in rougher shape. We talked to a community leader we had met in Ruhija, Tina, who mentioned to us it might be valuable to provide the materials to build a chicken coup for the school. A chicken coup would allow Ruhija Primary School to generate some income. In Uganda it is very common for people to own livestock with the intention to sell it for profit. We
Stephanie, Terri and Kylee finalizing the details of the chicken coup with Ruhija Primary School headmasters. were able to purchase many of the materials needed for Ruhija Primary School to build a chicken coup, and allowed them to build the coup themselves to have some ownership over the project. It was a very fun day for us to collect and drop off all the materials, and we are very happy to see the end result.
While in Ruhija one of our favourite people we met was a local leader named Tina. Tina helped us get involved with so many things in Ruhija, and helped us immensely in getting involved with the community and navigating the language barrier. We were really impressed by Tina’s
Change a Life Bwindi Project, and recognized the need for another sewing machine to help grow her project and employ more women. To thank Tina for all her help to us while in community, we were able to use our money to purchase one brand new sewing machine for the project. We are very happy to see how happy the girls are with the new machine.
In addition to the sewing machine, we also wanted to give back to the Batwa community we spent a day with way back in June.
The finished chicken coup. To thank them for their hospitality, and sharing their culture with us, we purchased for them two charcoal stoves to help with their day to day cooking.
Rugazi Community: From the moment we started work at the Health Center it was quite apparent to the lack of support this public facility was receiving. Rugazi Health Center IV deals with challenges such as lack of daily needed medical supplies, drug shortages, lack of medical lab testing, and a high patient volume. Even though there are many challenges, the staff provide the best care they possibly can, we all admired each health care professional for their determination and hard work.
The Rugazi team paired up with the medical students from the University of Saskatchewan and were able to purchase the Rugazi Health Center a variety of medical supplies. The amount raised added up to $4500 (Thank you all so much)! This allowed us to purchase the following:
Drugs: • 50 vials of lidocaine
• 50 vials of pethidine
• 50 vials of ephedrine
All the drugs are used for anesthetic during surgical procedures.
General supplies: • Gauze
• Gauze bandages
• Cotton
Daily supplies:
The girls at Change a Life Bwindi with their new machine. • 2,000 pairs of examination gloves
• 600 pairs of surgical gloves
• 400 doses of salbutamol (used to treat asthma)
• 200 pediatric IV cannulas
• 150 needles and syringes
• 144 sutures
• 100 Foley Catheter
• 71 bottles of normal saline
• 20 spinal needles
• 5 adult blood pressure cuffs
• 2 pediatric blood pressure cuffs
• 2 drug counting trays
• 5 digital thermometers
• 1 glucometer and 100 glucose test strips (to test blood sugar concentration)
• A baby warmer
Webale manunga (Thank you so much) to everyone who donated and helped us with this fundraiser! Every dollar was appreciated, and we thank you for helping us help our communities.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.072s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 7; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0355s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb