International Midwife Assistance: The Uganda Project

They are deeply traumatized people; they’ve seen horrific violence, murder; many of the children have survived abduction and either forced soldierhood or sexual slavery. The moral ambiguity of a conflict in which children are brutalized into committing atrocities has challenged the fabric of the society. Now these people are supposed to leave the camps, to go home. But no one is sure
where that is, or how to start over. Where there were once communities, there is nothing.

I traveled to Uganda at the request of a group of nurses who had established a small clinic in partnership with a Ugandan non-profit. Their clinic provided first aid and some medical services to the IDPs. Mostly they treated malaria. Malaria is such a huge part of living in Africa; there is nothing like it in the U.S. They wanted to add maternity services at the clinic, but they were out of their depth and budget. I traveled to visit their clinic and my board decided to fund a salary for one midwife. She would provide prenatal care to the patients at their clinic. That was in the beginning. Now we have this miraculous clinic with 15 indigenous staff members who serve hundreds of people each month providing medical care to women and children.  It’s a very different project than the one in Afghanistan, but it’s a great program.

October 2008 was a very exciting month for TSMP’s Ugandan staff. After much preparation, we began mobile outreach clinics in an area called Kamuda. Kamuda is a sub-county that includes 50 villages. The village closest to Soroti is only nine kilometers from town, but it is less developed than the IDP camps. A finger of huge Lake Kyoga reaches into Kamuda, and the people subsist on fish from the lake. As the pressure is turned up on IDPs to leave Soroti, many of them are trying to re-settle in Kamuda. Although the fish are abundant, adequate drinking water is a problem because there are insufficient wells. Most drinking water comes from the lake, so there is plenty of water-borne illness. The local leaders are working to organize the people to dig new pit latrines, as there is also no sewage system. Electricity is something that is only dreamt of. Going barefoot in and around the lake exposes the folks to a disease called bilharzia (its more proper name is schistosomiasis). There are two health centers for the 50 villages, but they are without staff or supplies. So every Thursday, the majority of our clinic staff packs up and rides out to Kamuda. 

A large number of needy people are getting help—people who otherwise have little or no access to medical care. An unanticipated bonus of this project has been the remarkable team building exercise it’s become for the staff. They love this project. Having the ability to reach out to the neediest Ugandans is something they take very seriously. 

Why is it that human beings living on the same planet that we live on have to live in a reality that includes no safe water, so much rape and physical violence, raiding militias, hunger, and always malaria, sickness, misery. I often stumble trying to illuminate something about the apparently obvious statement that these are people, human beings. What would you expect from the world if you and your community lost everything? We came into a world with such disparity already in play that we might not notice our responsibility to correct it. In the U.S., even the homeless can find safe water to drink.

Human beings live in grass-thatched huts on the dirt, without running water, without access to work or good healthcare. Human beings. Innocent women and children.   There are places in Africa that are in bad trouble,….and I believe we all have to stand up and help.

Jennifer Braun is Program Director at International Midwife Assistance.  To learn more about IMA, please visit www.midwifeassist.org.