What am I doing in Uganda?

A brief explanation: I was working in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in the United States (a full description for any of my African readers), as a coffee shop barista and a cheese monger. This was the off-season employment I had found to get me through to the on-season of leading a backpacking trip to Alaska through the Minneapolis YMCA Camp Menogyn in June to August 2010. But one can only make half-caf double soy lattes and cut aged cheddar for so long, or at least I could only do it for so long, so I jumped at the chance to volunteer in Uganda. I'm volunteering for a Minneapolis-based organization called WellShare International, formerly Minnesota International Health Volunteers. Some of the work WellShare does is with Somali immigrants in Minnesota and some of the work they do is in the East African countries of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. All of it involves public health and a particular focus on women and children. I asked where I might be of some use, and I was directed to a malaria control and prevention program they are leading in the West Nile region, in the northwest corner of Uganda. The WellShare office here is in the town of Arua, though the programming is reaching many tens of thousands of residents throughout the region. 

The Uganda Malaria Communities Partnership Program is in its third year of a three year President's Malaria Initiative grant to reduce the morbidity and mortality caused by malaria in the region (the laudable initiative was started by President George W. Bush and is continued now under President Obama). Here in the West Nile Region, malaria is the leading cause of death, and accounts for about 50% of outpatient visits to hospitals. It is about as serious a health issue as they get. The UMCP program is working in partnership with the Malaria Consortium and a Ugandan-based malaria organization, and most importantly through about a dozen local Civil Society Organizations, or CSOs. I should be listing more organizations and consortiums and partnerships, but it all very quickly becomes an alphabet-soup. I have discovered that Ugandans, maybe even more than Americans, have a peculiar fetish for acronyms. The important big picture is that these local CSOs (which are basically small non-profits) are getting the tools and training from WellShare to continue malaria prevention and treatment work in their respective sub-districts indefinitely. 

As for me, I'm familiarizing myself with the whole UMCP program and focusing on helping two CSOs in the town of Yumbe, Yumbe District, West Nile Region. When WellShare is done here, I want these two CSOs - Safe Motherhoods and Needy Kids - to be running smoothly, getting outside funding, and doing great work to fight malaria for a long time. 

For more information on WellShare Internationalhttp://www.wellshareinternational.org/

For more information on the President's Malaria Initiative, Malaria Communities Programhttp://www.fightingmalaria.gov/