During my journey many stories have touched my heart and soul and I have met so many people in need of help, this area along with the charity and scholarship pages highlights just some of them:
July 2010
“Child Namatala”
Namatala Child Survival Project Mbale, Eastern Uganda
On my revisit to Mbale in January of this year I revisited Namatala and met up with Sam Okotel . The area has over 20,000 residents living here approximatly 52% of which are children living in extreme conditions with high mortality rates and few resources.
Sam described to me the conditions of Child Healthcare in the Namatala Area:
"The Namatala suburb is the largest multi-cultural community in Mbale municipal council. This dynamic community faces a lot of challenges socially, economically and culturally.
The highest morbidity and mortality from preventable and commonly curable diseases reported within Mbale as reported by the Mbale Regional Referral Hospital come from Namatala community. In addition, the nutrition of the community remains in an appalling state with especially among the Karamojong community that largely dependent on very low paid casual labor as a major source of household income and picking leftover food from garbage bins.
The infant and under five morbidity and mortality in this area remains very heavy in eastern region. Health programmes through outreach education health missions have been conducted to sensitize communities on family and community hygiene, sanitation, nutrition and malaria control programmes.
However curative and preventive services for the most killer diseases among children, especially Malaria, Pneumonia, Diarrheal diseases, Tuberculosis, Malnutrition, Measles, and anaemia of multiple origins are rampant in this area.
The Namatala population is one of the highly growing populations in the entire eastern region. On average, there are 8 people per household, 80% of which are children aged less than 10 years.
This population has more women and children compared to any other population in the surrounding areas in and around Mbale area. There are an estimated 20,000 total residents in this area with 52% of them being children aged less than 5 years of age.
The common house structure in the Namatala community remains grass thatched, old iron sheets or polythene paper makeshift houses; prone to suffer effects of adverse weather. They are usually overcrowded as one single roomed house usually accommodates a population of a family of size 4 -9 people. Because of overcrowding, the community is predisposed to common communicable and often life threatening infections and accidental domestic injuries due to fire and falling debris.
Because of the degree of poverty in this area , if a child fell sick of malaria, a common infection in the area, it will not be able to purchase a paediatric dose of antimalarial drugs dose or other required medication." Sam Okotel
Sam Okotel with his team of Medical Advisor, Community Nurse, Child Social Worker and Resident Representative is working collectively to develop the Namatala Child Survival Project utilizing strategies that include :
· Immunization,
· Growth monitoring,
· Oral rehydration therapy,
· Breast feeding & childhood nutrition,
· Female education,
· Family planning,
· House hold water hygiene,
· House hold environmental hygiene
In order to get this project up and running it is estimate that a 2 year budget would be £20,800
By my reckoning if there are 20,000 residents living in these conditions that would be approximatlely £1 per person, or if we take the percentage of children as being 52% that would mean we could support the healthcare of these children for 2 years at a cost of £2 per child.
With that in mind I am setting myself a new challenge to support the Namatala Child Survival Project and try to raise awareness, sponsorship and funding to create the development of the
“Child Survival Project” in Namatala.
So if you would like to help this project in any way ,though donations, sponsorship etc then please get in touch with me
or with
Sam Okotel at
P.O.BOX 1966, MBALE, UGANDA
EAST AFRICA
Tel. +256 791 700 707
Email: MPROJ.Research@gmail.com
A full proposal of the project outlining goals and outcomes can be supplied by Sam Okotel and his Team.
Let’s make this happen !!!!!!!!!
March 2010
Landslides Uganda
It is with a heavy heart that I have to report to you sad news of events that has happened to our friends in Uganda ! Following heavy rains on 1st March 2010 (St. David’s Day), landslides have occurred in the Bududa area of Mbale. Over 300 people are missing or have been killed including over 100 children trying to return home from school. More than 2000 people have been left homeless and without any means of making a living or providing for their families. They urgently need your support.
This is a letter I received from Karina an aide worker and friend who featured in the Namata film and is now actively working in Bududa:
"Dear friends and family
I wanted to email you all about an extremely tragic situation here because I have been feeling quite helpless and thought this was the best thing I could do.
On Thursday, David and I went to a place about an hour away called Bududa. A devastating landslide had occurred there last Monday night and we went to video cover the situation.
Bududa is an extremely poor and isolated rural community.
The majority of people there are subsistence farmers who live and work in the hills. Where the landslide occurred, there was a trading centre and, as Monday was a market day, many people had come to that area.
It definitely wasn’t easy climbing up there in all the mud, but the scene at the landslide was like something I could never have imagined. It was as if someone had turned the whole mountain upside down. Where there had been houses, farms, livestock, a health centre and shops, there is now just dirt. It was eerie walking around the place.
There are already some shallow graves around. We could see random onions and carrots scattered around which people must have brought for sale at the trading centre. We saw cows buried under the mud and the stench of rotting vegetation, cattle and people was quite overwhelming. About 350 people have died as a result of the landslide. As we interviewed locals, they described their overwhelming loss. One man had lost his house, his business, his wife and eight children. Another man had lost his entire clan – about 35 people. The people seemed quite shell-shocked. They were really open to talk to us because, I think ,they wanted to share their pain with someone.
Survivors have been evacuated from the surrounding area because there are fears of another landslide and also spread of disease as bodies start decomposing. However, no alternative accommodation has been provided to survivors and, if they don’t have friends to stay with, they have to sleep outside in the incessant rain.
The Ugandan army had come in to try and exhume bodies or find survivors but they only have small shovels and they have uncovered few bodies. Some people trapped in the health centre with mobile phones had called relatives after the landslide to say that they had survived, that women had given birth and for someone to come and rescue them, but no real effort has been made to locate the health centre.
Today is the last day that the army will be digging and from tomorrow the place will be declared a mass grave.
The Red Cross have been providing people with blankets, some food, a saucepan and a jerry can, but beyond this, no other assistance has been availed to survivors.
David and I will be continuing to go to Bududa and help my now brother-I law, Richard, who is coordinating an effort to provide aid and counseling for survivors. I wanted to appeal to you, on behalf of the survivors, to send any money, however small or big, to help survivors rebuild their lives as these people have lost their homes, their livestock, all their possessions, their livelihoods, their neighbours, their friends and their families
If you, or anyone you know, is able to give money, please donate.
Thanks so very much for all your love.
Karina"
If you can help in any way then please get in touch with Pont :
http://pont-mbale.org.uk/main/index.php
