Curing Cultural Divides
In addition to tests, diagnoses and treatment, community health often hinges on cultural issues. This vital lesson guides the Uganda Village Project, an NGO that helps communities create and implement healthcare solutions.
Launched in 2003 by the International Federation of Medical Students Associations—USA, Uganda Village Project (UVP) applies a “village concept project” developed in collaboration with the World Health Organization. Since 1986, medical students and medical professionals have partnered with villages in underserved countries to improve community health. Programs have chalked up successes in Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.
Strategies that help families nurture healthy children appeal to men and women alike. Popular programs ease access to fresh water, a top UVP priority. Everybody also applauds screening for cervical cancers or treating obstetric fistula, an affliction common in poor countries but seldom seen in the industrialized world. Prolonged, obstructed labor while giving birth causes infant mortality and severe tissue damage to women. Irreversible complications often force them into isolation without family, friends or means of support.
For women who suffer from fistula, surgery, treatment and guidance can achieve miraculous results. The women rejoin communities and families and return to school or work. Responding to demand, the Uganda Village Project (UVP) has expanded its obstetric fistula program beyond the Iganga district.
Other humanitarian priorities encounter cultural hurdles. Women in villages queue up to learn about the consequences of HIV and Aids. Men, though, resist counseling and testing, some because they work during the day, others because they fear the stigma that accompanies visible concern. In Uganda’s patriarchal society, many men refuse to stand in line behind women, says UVP managing director Edmund Okiboko, who has worked in the NGO sector since 2008 since earning an undergraduate degree in Social Work and Social Administration from Makerere University.
Curbing the spread of HIV/Aids depends on educating and treating men. To encourage their participation, UVP introduced a “moonlight” program located where men routinely meet from 6 pm to 10 pm. Discreet access after working hours and away from women spurred men’s interest in testing, counseling and referrals.
Gender biases often hamper family planning in villages where husbands expect to decide when to have children. Problems begin when women want to learn about family planning. “We are always brainstorming to find approaches that integrate family planning with cancer screening or malaria testing,” says Mr. Okiboko. Bundling services also eases resistance to testing for sexually transmitted diseases, another serious problem.
Challenges are daunting but the results are rewarding, says Mr. Okiboko, who has a post graduate diploma in Project Planning and Management and is completing a Master’s Degree in Management Science at the Uganda Management Institute. While working with children and refugees in Burundi, he implemented a peace recovery program under the American Friends Service Committee. He joined UVP in 2017.
Born in rural Uganda, Mr. Okiboko is a passionate change-maker attuned to wide gaps in the quality of health care. “Growing up in that society and breaking through as a young student taught me that there is a lot of room to improve systems,” he says. To him, health is a human right. “What has kept me in the nonprofit area is seeing the impact of our work,” he says. He measures success in progress by the people who, with his help, turn their lives around — women rescued from fistula or a child aids victim who becomes a productive adult. “It makes me more comfortable to be in the NGO world,” he says “seeing that I am part of the solution to problems in a community.”
[Banner photo credit: Yay Images]
