Village Enterprise’s Soroti Uganda staff started a Christmas party celebration by taking the maternity services nearer to the expectant mothers in the community.
During the Business Mentor bi-weekly meetings everyone wanted a unique Christmas party different from the previously celebrated ones. Everyone wanted something different, special, and one that would speak out at the end of the day.
After several suggestions on how this should be celebrated all agreed that we should give back to the community. Each individual member in Village Enterprise Uganda felt that this was a great idea to give back to the community out of their own earnings as a way of being grateful and saying thanks for how far we have come.
We all agreed that we needed to give to a health center as we realized that Health is a factor that drains incomes from the rural communities and drives them into extreme poverty. Research was carried out to establish which health center had uttermost need, and we finally settled on Western Division Health Center 111 within Soroti town.
We were able to reach this decision for a number of reasons. First, this health center had stayed for 9 years since it was build, but without any power. This means that the maternity ward has not been fully operational for the same number of years. As compared to the rest of the health centers in the area its conditions are worse, yet it has the highest rural population visiting it. Finally, we believe that the donation fits in to our intervention, as we all know that disease is one of the factors that perpetuate poverty. By connecting power to this health center we believe that many lives of pregnant mothers and babies will be saved. Especially, births that take place at night will now be easier and safer.
All senior staff contributed UG 50,000 each which is equivalent of 21 US dollars and the rest of the staff contributed UG 33,000 each which is equivalent to 14 US dollars. In total, the staff was able to raise over 300 US dollars.We have completed the whole process and are now waiting for Umeme, the electricity supplying company in Uganda to verify the wiring of the health center and connect the power.
This was a great Ugandan Christmas giving event!
