A message from the Headmaster...

Please see pictured the letter from Royal Pride's Headteacher and staff to those who kindly donated funds for the school. It means so much to them and this term should be relatively mud free!

Half Term at Sipi Falls

Once again combining a work trip with some sightseeing, we hit the road over the girls' half term break. We visited 2 of the IMC clinics with which Alison has been working based in Lira and Pader in the North of Uganda, until quite recently inaccessible due to the war waged by Kony's Lords' Resistance Army. Particularly in Pader, the level of healthcare is very basic and there were a lot of sick people waiting in line to see the only doctor in attendance that day. Pader clinic is IMCs first venture into a private/public partnership, so there is a great deal of effort being put into making it work, but inevitably a lot of obstacles need to be overcome, not least of all differing working practices.


After leaving the clinics we headed back to Kampala via the beautiful Sipi Falls, which comprise a series of waterfalls fed by the glaciers of neighbouring Mount Elgon, once Africa's highest peak. The accomodation comprised rustic huts with hot showers supplied by wood fires and the fresh mountain air was a welcome break from the dusty heat of Kampala. We spent 2 full days there and were joined by some good friends Natalie and George. We trekked to all 3 waterfalls including a trip over the top of one of them upon the recommendation and reassurance of some local likely lads. Their idea of steep and slippy was somewhat different from ours, but we made it over the rickety ladders and precarious bridges to live to tell the tale. Another example of the disparity between English and African risk assessment!


The journey home was rather drawn out as it coincided with the start of the new Ugandan school term and most children board here. There was also a local election happening and the roads were full of supporters and armed police and tanks. Doesn't bode too well for the presidential elections early next year, but we will thankfully be gone by then!

Happy Birthday Stacey!

We recently hosted a surprise birthday party for our friend, neighbour and fellow volunteer Stacey. Amazingly, it was the first BBQ we have undertaken here and took place in the 'secret garden'- a grassy patch beyond our compound walls. We generated a lot of interest from the local kids who enjoyed the balloons and some tasty burgers and trifle.

New Pride at the Academy...

The new floor at the Royal Pride Academy has been completed whilst the children are off on holiday. It was a bigger job than expected (as always!) but fortunately we were able to finish what we wanted thanks to your generosity. The staff and children are so excited and grateful. It now means they have raised classrooms so that the water can't affect lessons. Here are some of the teachers and children stading proudly atop their new flooring. One of the teachers, Irene, calls the new flooring a 'quencher', as it has quenched the fire of those people in the community who used to say that they were wasting their time with the school and it would never come to anything.
It is a massive step in the right direction for the school. We had to put back the old wooden structure for the classrooms until we have funding for brick walls. We're also hoping to develop the 'playground' in the future too. The teachers' plan is to hire out the largest building and compound to the local community for functions at weekends, thus raising some extra school funds.
The Headteacher, Godfrey, has written a heartfelt thank you letter, which we were hoping to post, but the website doesn't like the scanned PDF file so we'll email it to those who contributed.

with big thanks from Naomi...

Thank you to all those who are helping to support Naomi and her family. If you want to follow her amazing story then do so on her blog 'My Family and I' at www.naomird.blogspot.com

May Day Madness!

One thing Kampala is not blessed with is lots of children's 'activities' so we could not resist the offer of a 'Children's Fun Fair' on May Day. This consisted of a muddy field surrounded by tents and filled with more bouncy castles than you could shake a stick at. There was even a shabby camel for the children to ride on, although we did see a few fall off at the sudden unexpected dismount!

I wish it were that easy!!

...front page headline of a national newspaper yesterday!! Then another bit of classic primary prevention advice follows below - another common belief as to how to avoid contracting HIV. It's no wonder the HIV prevalence is 6.4% and climbing in Uganda!! It is with this in mind that I am appealing for funds to continue the comprehensive STI service that we have developed for the local community. STI control is proven to lead to a 40% reduction in transmission of HIV, so in Kampala, where STI prevalence is estimated to be about 9%, a comprehensive STI service can make a huge difference. Sadly, the funds through IMF (the charitable arm of the organisation) are limited and so if anyone feels the urge, donations would be most welcome via the following website: http://www.suubitrust.org.uk/, earmarked for the STI clinic. £10 provides screening and treatment for 1 person with obvious knock-on benefits for that person's sexual contacts too... so more for your money!!! If you are able to donate, drop me a line and I can keep you posted of how your money is used (whilst not being too graphic of course!)
Thanks to those who have already donated to this cause.

Rain Stopped Play...

...but only briefly. This just shows how much Royal Pride School will benefit from the new flooring. Previously the school would have had to abandon lessons in a downpour like this.
The foundations are now down and next we have to lift up the wooden walls and tin roof to lay the fooring underneath. The school is keen to build brick walls on the foundations over time and is looking at some further fund-raising initiatives of its own.

Hardcore!

Work started on the classrooms at the Royal Pride Academy (with the funds you donated). 8 trips to the local quarry to collect some pretty large rocks, which will be the hardcore for the floor, followed by some sand, cement and more stones. Elected not to carry the large rocks as didn't want to show up the locals! Child labour doesn't seem to be an issue here, so may get the girls to work...

Easter Island!

We spent Easter chilling on an island called Bushara on Lake Bunyonyi in the lush and montainous South West of Uganda. We had to get there via dug-out canoe and we stayed in a tree house with an outdoor shower. There was not much to do besides swim in the lake, spot birds and play monopoly- it was great and we returned relaxed.

We also stayed a night in Bush Lodge on the edge of Queen Elizabeth NP, where the hippos and elephants got up close and personal (see the big fellas in the background of the picture below) Seems like a long time ago as things have been rather manic since.

It's not all work

Since discovering our wonderful babysitter, Rose, we have been able to indulge in some evening social activities together without the girls. The highlights so far have been a St Patrick's Day Ball, where Alan was resplendent in an emerald-green shirt, and a reggae/karaoke night, where Red, Red Wine was duly murdered.

Cowan Girls on Stage!

Amy and Bella recently starred in their respective class performances- Amy at Kampala's National Theatre in 'Year 3's Got Talent' where she compered, and Bella at her nursery where she bedazzled us with her African/Wind the Bobbin Up fusion dance.

Try avoiding this one...

Pot holes take on a whole new dimension here and never again will we complain about the state of roads in St Albans...



We fell victim to another of Kampala's roads recently, when Alan was dropping our babysitter, Rose, back to her home by the swamp. He didn't see a huge mud bath in the road and and went headfirst into it. Finally, after 4 hours of digging in the dark with a hoe assisted by some of Rose's neighbours, we managed to find a tow-truck and Jasper emerged to drive another day...

Big Thanks...

..to everyone who very generously donated money to the aforementioned causes with which we are working. You are very kind and it will make a big difference to those involved.
Pictured is Alison delivering some health training to the parents of one of the schools in which Alan has been involved. Also, a few of the children at Royal Pride with some new footie tops donated through an American friend and Bella with her new buddies at the school.

Show me the money...

Several of you back home set us the onerous task of finding the most worthwhile projects here to which you could donate and be confident that your hard-earned cash is being appropriately and effectively used. We have been giving that a lot of thought and have identified 3 such projects that would benefit enormously from any financial input and in which we have some involvement.
The first is the Royal Pride Academy, which is the school mentioned below. Every time there is significant rainfall, the place turns into a mudbath- which although useful for pottery classes, is somewhat disruptive to running the school. The money would be used to put down some concrete flooring at the bargain price of fifty pounds per classroom, of which there are 9.



The second is supporting a good friend of ours, Naomi, whom we have mentioned several times before. She came to Uganda from the UK for a 2 week trip some 8 years ago and, moved by the huge level of need in Kampala slums, has never left. As well as looking after 14 local street children in her own home, she also works with several families and helps them find ways of supporting their own children. She does this through facilitating small income-generating projects such as bread-making for them. She also has her own pre-school, Sparkling Stars, where Alan helps out on a weekly basis. She uses the funds from this business to pay school fees (on average 30 pounds per child per term) and not just those children who live with her. She is personally responsible for funding the schooling of up to 30 children! The income from Sparkling Stars is small so she relies heavily on donations from friends and family.

Finally, Alison has already mentioned below some of the community health projects in which she is involved. Most of these deal with people suffering from HIV and who otherwise would not be able to access healthcare. They are funded by the International Medical Foundation (IMF), who in turn are supported by the hospital where Alison is based and also receive donations from the Suubi Trust. IMF also helps fund Hope Ward at the hospital, which provides hospital care to those who cannot afford it. You can read more about this at the website http://www.suubitrust.org.uk/

If you would like to donate to any of these causes, please drop us an email at alcowan@doctors.org.uk and we would be happy to facilitate it.

What Alan gets up to...

Situated in a low-lying slum area of Kampala in Uganda on a small plot of muddy ground is a Primary School called the Royal Pride Academy. The school was set up 5 years ago by a Ugandan teacher called Godfrey upon realising that many of the children from the most disadvantaged areas had no access to primary schooling. They could not afford the £10 per month required to attend the government schools, of which they were not enough available in the area anyway.
The school currently has around 200 pupils, which includes a pre-school class, and 6 teachers, some of whom do not draw a salary for their work. The buildings are basic wooden structures with no flooring or protection from the elements and encircling a muddy, stoney field. There are pit latrines, but nowhere to prepare food, so the children go home for lunch and return for lessons in the afternoon. School starts at 8am and finishes at 4pm.
The school survives by charging £8 per term to those that can afford it topped up with some donations from well-wishers. This covers the cost of very basic school materials (exercise books, pencils, rough furniture, blackboards) and some teachers’ salaries. There are very few text books and there were no reading books until Alan took some in from the Fleetville School donations recently.
Despite all this the children are progressing well and the teachers are very committed to delivering the best education possible. The children learn numeracy and literacy and even creative fields such as traditional dance and pottery made from the mud in the ‘playground’.
We are hoping to raise enough funds to improve the facilities so that classrooms don’t have to be closed when heavy rains come. Putting a concrete floor into a classroom would cost about £50 (there are 9 classrooms). Alan also plans to spend some time at the school helping with reading and literacy and we already have enough books to set up a decent small library

and what Alison gets up to...

Alison is continuing to really enjoy her work and finds it very fulfilling. All the clinics have actively engaged in the training programme, the development of which was her main VSO placement objective. It is so rewarding to hear how valuable the clinics find it, not only from the point of view of updating their knowledge base, and so continuing to improve the standard of care that they offer, but also from the angle of consolidating the team and increasing overall job satisfaction.
The training programme constitutes an in-house component which involves the whole multidisciplinary team within each clinic, and an across-clinic component which is organised within each of the disciplines – medical, nursing, and laboratory. The in-house component comprises weekly continuous medical education (CME) sessions, 2 out of 3 of which are around a set curriculum with the objective of producing useful evidence-based guidelines/protocols on important topics that the clinics have identified themselves and from which the timetable was drawn up. The across-clinic component falls within each discipline and involves internet-based learning modules, and regular workshops at which all the medical and clinical officers gather. As well as appreciating the training, they also benefit from the opportunity to socialise and create a network of colleagues with whom they can share best practice and from whom they can draw support despite the distances between them. There are now coordinators for the clinic nurses and laboratory technicians, so Alison can concentrate mainly on the medical and clinical officers. We have also created a training team which comprises representatives from each discipline and whose remit is to arrange structured training team visits during which they offer support and training within their area of expertise, as well as together build on the teamworking within the clinic.
The team has now undertaken several training team visits with good effect and excellent results and so Alison is confident that the programme will continue to be successful with the support of this team and under the excellent leadership of one of the clinic doctors, Dr Terry. Alison has one last workshop to organise together with Dr Terry and then will continue to support her and the team but plans to spend more time on the other projects in which she has been involved.
Her next main focus is the development of the sexual health services in the local community through the community project that is currently running, Touch Namuwongo. This project is well-established and has been running for almost 2 years supporting close to 600 people infected by HIV in the local communities. It also provides care for those affected by TB and Alison is now in the process of expanding the sexual health service it offers, which she hopes will have a huge impact on the morbidity and mortality associated with STIs, as well as reduce the transmission of HIV through better control of STIs. The project also runs weekly outreach sessions in the community where they offer health education and voluntary counselling and testing for HIV and some photos from one of these outreaches are pictured here. She has also been involved in setting up a cervical screening programme at the hospital, and the hospital has now agreed to offer this to the community free of charge which is a very exciting development. The CEO is now keen to set up similar programmes in the North of Uganda, which has even less available healthcare so that will be Alison’s next focus.
Community projects like this and others attached to a lot of the clinics with whom Alison is working, make a huge difference to the local community and are funded through IMF – International Medical Foundation. IMF is supported by the proceeds from the hospital and charitable donations through the Suubi Trust. You can learn more about them and these projects through their website (http://www.suubitrust.org.uk/), and having had personal involvement in them all, Alison can vouch for every last one of them!

Meet the Grandparents II

Not quite with the 11 suitcases they came out with, Alison’s parents, Alan and Maureen, have returned to chilly Blighty after 2 and a half weeks of Ugandan adventure. They packed a lot into their time here including a road trip out West that took in a couple of National Parks as well as clinic visits for Alison. We then headed to the southern most tip of Uganda where we escaped to an island on lake Bunyonyi for a couple of days before heading home. In Kampala, they visited some of our regular haunts including the Railway School, Naomi’s nursery, Palm Café (best pizzas in Africa) the ARA, as well as a night of cultural dancing at the Ndere Centre. We saw the sun set over Kampala (pictured) before they boarded the plane back home.

THANK YOU EVERYONE!

Sorry for the recent blog silence, but we have been without a working internet connection for the past few weeks. First and foremost we just wanted to say a massive THANK YOU to everyone back in sunny St Albans who has helped provide children’s books, games and clothing. Alison’s parents filled 11 suitcases/boxes with them and brought them out to Uganda courtesy of BA’s generous charitable baggage allowance. We were overwhelmed with the generosity of the donations- the quality and quantity of the gifts were so impressive and we have managed to find very grateful homes for nearly everything (see below) The Railway School loved the books - most of the children had never seen these types of bright, colourful picture books before. They read the letters with great interest and have started to write some responses. Alan visited another school, the Royal Pride Academy, which is in even more need of resources, and they were also able to benefit from some of the books as we received such a wonderful amount.
The donated clothes have been distributed to the most vulnerable children in the slum area, through a local church there and a charitable project called ’Hands for Hope’. We were also able to give some clothes and books to our friend Naomi, who looks after around 15 local children and runs a nursery

Mary's Reunion...

We’ve really enjoyed the company of Phil and Swanny (friends from St Mary's Medical School) over the past 3 weeks and 3 months respectively and are sad to see them both go this week. They have been an integral part of our adventures here and we will really miss them.

Off to Lake Nabugabo...

Amy’s birthday continued with an overnight camping trip to Lake Nabugabo, an idyllic setting about 2.5 hours West of Kampala. 9 of us, 2 tents and a BBQ squeezed into Jasper and we arrived to find we had the resort to ourselves, apart from the donkeys. We pitched camp right on the beach and spent 2 happy days lazing in and by the lake, playing games and dining on freshly caught fish. We topped off Amy's birthday with marshmallows toasted on our camp fire and BBQ'd chocolate bananas.

High School Musical 8!

Amys 8th birthday party was themed along High School Musical lines, especially poignant as our friend Naltalie, who is currently living with us, bears an uncanny resemblance to the leading lady, Gabriella (as pictured with the girls here). To build up to the movie screening (projected from our laptop onto a wall) we had face painting, a nail bar, and jewellry making. And to work off the excesses of the party tea, we were subjected to the sing-along/dance-along version!

We call it 'Playdoh'...

Alan went with Bella to introduce the Ugandan children at Naomi's nursery to the wonders of Playdoh, made from flour, water, salt and colouring. They played with it for hours and seemed to enjoy sticking it to their faces!

Village Life

Last weekend we visited a village 2 hours outside Kampala with new VSO arrivals Diane and Sarah. Diane's sister was adopted from the village and she is now setting up a mother and toddler group there. We stayed for some delicious lunch and the women put on a traditional Ugandan dance for us. We were made to feel very welcome. The girs swapped versions of their favourite games with the gang of local children, which included variations on 'Oranges and Lemons', 'What's the Time Mr Wolf?' and a lethal game of Tug of War with no rope!