Every year a group of Spanish Doctors visit Uganda and carry out health checks, treat and perform operations on the adults and children there
As well as the visits, the doctors are in contact with the various health groups throughout the year and carry out remote consultations by phone or the internet.
Their latest visit was in December 2023 - Click here to see what happened.
The Igazaya Diabetics Association was set up in May 2017 after the visit of a Spanish endocrinologist, Dra Alba Galdón. It is made up of mostly elderly people, many of whom have high blood pressure as well as diabetes.
On her visits to Uganda Dra Alba takes glucometers for the members of the group. They are also supported by the local government lab technician. He tests them regularly when they come for meetings and has taught selected people from the villages how to use the glucometers so they can keep a record of their own, and their neighbours, sugar levels.
The group has an emergency fund which all the members contribute to. Members can borrow from this fund if they have to go into hospital or have special treatment. In these cases members also commit to looking after each other's children and giving any other necessary support.
Two members of Adelante Africa visiting Igayaza taught the group a keep fit routine which they follow in groups or all together on a Sunday afternoon.
The Diabetic association has a very active chairperson and executive committee. With the help of the government technician, they applied for and obtained recognition as an official association from Kakumiro District. Adelante Africa pays for half the cost of the T-shirts the group wear. On the front these say Adelante Africa Diabetics Association and on the back, Stronger Together.
The group meets once a month to exchange experiences and news.
The aim of this project is for the children in the Omwaana Tugenda Children’s Home to eat at least 3 eggs a week.
Almost all of the chickens belonging to local people die of the Newcastle virus. Only the most well-off in the villages vaccinate their chickens as you cannot buy fewer than 100 doses and the vaccine needs to be refrigerated. This is not realistic for most local people who have fewer than 10 chickens and no electricity! For that reason, in August 2014 Adelante Africa bought vaccines and 11 thermos flasks and launched a chicken vaccination programme, vaccinating nearly 5,000 chickens against the prevalent Newcastle disease. This August . The vaccinations were organized by the F.A.L. and carried out by 22 volunteers, 2 per village. The Government vet trained then trained the F.A.L. volunteers.
With the thermos flasks, which had ice and a syringe with vaccine dangling on the end of a piece of wool in them, the F.A.L. volunteers vaccinated nearly 5,000 chickens in 2 days. It cost just over 300 euros.
The Moral: … sometimes you don’t need large sums of money to make a difference, but what you do need is local people willing to give up their time for the health of their communities.
In November 2016, Adelante Africa carried out the Vitamin A and Albendazole campaign in the Birembo sub-county, with the collaboration of the Village Health Teams, local government health authorities and World Vision.
During this campaign 2,526 children received vitamin A and 2,921 received a parasite elimination treatment.
We would like to say a big thank you to the VHTs (Village Health Teams), the local government health authorities and to World Vision for their collaboration in this campaign. Birembo was one of the Ugandan sub-counties where the most children were treated this year.
The District Health Authority congratulated all involved for their dedication and good organisation.
.JPG)
