We arrived just in time to accompany Judith (the CHP Clinical officer) to a village in Kibibi where she was going to conduct training of Community Volunteer Workers. This was the fourth month of training for the CVWs and the topic of their training that day was HIV & AIDS.

It had rained pretty heavily in Jinja that morning and the roads were very muddy and slippery; at some point we had to leave our vehicle behind and walk the remaining distance.

When we arrived at the training venue (a home of one of the projects’ local supporters in the community) we found that none of the CVWs had arrived. However word of our arrival spread rather quickly and within a few minutes the CVWs started arriving at the venue carrying chairs, the white board and other material for training. Many of the CVWs carried files with notes neatly kept.

We were happy to know that Judith had a rather detailed and good training manual and a wealth of information to share. The CVWs began by presenting a Health Education and Promotion dramatization of the topics they had covered in previous trainings. It was interesting to see that they had internalised the information given to them through the training and ‘reproduced’ it in their own local language and in the most creative and entertaining (‘infotaining’) way!! This was evidence of the quality of their training. Judith mentioned that before attending the trainings many of the CVWs were not confident and could hardly speak in public (before a crowd) however as they presented their drama the CVWs exuded a great deal of confidence and mastery of the subject matter.

After the presentation, the CVWs settled down for their lesson. We were impressed with how the CVW were confident, showed a great deal of interest in the training and interacted with the trainer. The lesson was very interactive and the students took notes.

This training session was the first of two in Judith’s day. After this training she would travel some distance to another village to train more CVWs. We travelled back to Kampala, very satisfied and impressed with Judith’s work.

We are glad that the input of Hands of Help and International Medical Foundation is making a difference in villages in Jinja.

Helen Lay is looking into the financial records Judith gave her for an IMF internal audit.

You can download this visit report and additional photos by clicking here…

Through our volunteer programme we have had and continue to enrol volunteers from Uganda and overseas who have found this a rewarding experience.

In Uganda, we have several young volunteers whose help has been vital in maintaining our records and database; including general administrative duties and tasks. Volunteers from England, USA, Belgium and other countries have also contributed in the areas of nursing and midwifery, trauma and emergency care, among others.

One of our longest serving volunteers is a Nurse Tutor recruited through Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO). His experience has been immensely rewarding as he shares nursing knowledge and expertise with students who have a dream to be excellent nurse practitioners. We believe that his efforts to impart knowledge and critical thinking will have profound outcomes in the quality of nursing care that these students will give – we can already see it in their student practice now.

As of March 2008, we have a second volunteer from VSO working with the Finance Team to devise, implement or improve finance systems across the organisation.

The hospital currently has critical needs in:

• Paediatrics
• Midwifery
• Intensive care nursing
• Health Service/ General Management
• Anaesthesiology and Critical Care
• Tutoring at the nursing school

Please contact us if you are interested in sharing knowledge in these areas.

Click here to read more about opportunities through VSO…

I was born in Lusaka, Zambia and lived in Livingstone (near Victoria Falls) until 1974 when my family moved ‘back’ to England – arriving in cold, wet Northumberland was a bit of a shock to me and I was cross about it for at least 2 years! After a ‘gap year’ working for Unilever I did a degree in Archaeology & Anthropology at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. As career opportunities for anthropologists were a little limited my first job was as a Finance Graduate Trainee with Coca-Cola Schweppes Beverages and I completed my CIMA (Management Accountancy) training with them. Having originally thought that being a Management Accountant would be a good stepping stone into more general roles within industry I found that I really enjoyed working in Finance – mainly because I liked getting involved in all aspects of a business and am a bit of a control freak!

Over the last 17 years I’ve worked for Whitbread Beer Company, DMGT (which publishes the Daily Mail, Evening Standard and Metro) and most recently Telegraph Media Group where I managed a team of 12 Management Accountants. Despite being very happy and settled in London I have always wanted to come back to Africa – particularly after a holiday in Zimbabwe/Zambia 10 years ago which included a rather emotional visit to the school in Livingstone where my parents worked as teachers. I had always been aware of Voluntary Services Overseas (V.S.O) who send skilled people rather than money to Africa, Asia and the Pacific Islands but had thought that they only sent teachers and medical professionals. But about a year ago I saw one of their ads which was targeted at people with finance, I.T and management experience and after a big think about whether this was the right time for me to go away for 2 years I took the plunge and applied.

Having gone through V.S.O’s rigourous selection and training progress I was offered a choice of 2 placements – one as a Management Accountant with the International Medical Group in Uganda and the other with an Community Youth project in Zambia. After a lot of internet research and general dithering I decided to come to Uganda and here I am. I arrived here on the 23rd February and Kampala already feels like home – mainly because everyone I’ve met has been so friendly and welcoming. I’m looking forward to working with the IMG and IMF teams and seeing how my role here can fit in with V.S.O’s objectives of ‘Sharing Skills, Changing Lives”. I think I’ll learn a lot from my colleagues here and I hope to contribute the benefit of my experience in financial management and reporting.