“Healthy Villages” is an innovative, grassroots approach to addressing rural healthcare and public health in Uganda. Its goal is to improve the provision of healthcare and of preventative health education to underserved populations across rural Iganga District.  Though “Healthy Villages” we target the primary health risks of the region at a village-by village-level, working always with the District Health Office (DHO) of Iganga, with Sub-County officials, and with local Health Center staff.

Meet Our Healthy Villages

We launched Healthy Villages in five ‘pilot’ villages during the summer of 2009, and will eventually expand to work in a total of 70 chosen villages. All villages are based around the same five health centers, and all fall into the bottom quartile in sanitation and access to clean water. In this way, we have chosen to work with the most underserved villages in Iganga District.

They vary in size, holding anywhere from a hundred to three hundred households, and the households range from tiny, mud-and-thatch huts to small but well-built brick houses with tidy compounds and gardens around.  Even the main roads of the villages are simply dusty, red dirt paths which wind through crops and fields and grass.  The smaller paths are barely distinguishable, crisscrossing the village like a web of red amongst the green.  Cows, goats and chickens wander freely, and a plethora of children spill out of every compound – playing, gathering water, ride bicycles far too tall for them, and staring with wide eyes at any strange visitors to the village.  Women sit outside their houses in the afternoon, cooking or weaving mats or chatting under the small shade of a tree or overhanging roof.  A passerby must greet the residents of each compound as he walks along, exchanging a series of soft-spoken questions and answers that gives the impression of singing a duet rather than just exchanging pleasantries.

Through the Healthy Villages program, we work at a village-by-village level to address the most pressing healthcare concerns of each community; malaria, HIV/AIDS, safe water access, household sanitation and hygiene practices, latrine coverage, and family planning access, just to name a few. We partner with small Community Based Organizations (CBOs), larger Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), international volunteers and experts, and government officials ranging from the district to the village level.

In each of our Healthy Villages, we: Provide preventative education, trainings and workshops on pressing healthcare concerns such as malaria, safe water, hygiene and sanitation, and obstetric fistula Collaborate with local partners to provide preventative healthcare options such as STD or HIV testing, immunizations, or birth control Provide specialized healthcare options by creating referral networks whereby local Health Centers alert UVP if a patient requires care beyond its own capacity (such as cataract removal, obstetric fistula repair, or tubal ligation), and UVP arranges for the patient to receive this healthcare at a specialty site Construct one or more shallow wells as needed, in partnership with the villagers and the District Water Office Provide water treatment products and malaria nets (subsidized by UVP so as to be affordable) to village households, both through direct sales and through setting up supply chains for both products in each village Create Village Health Teams which function as ‘model citizen’ households, as educators, and as primary healthcare contacts for the community

Healthy Village Profiles – Learn More! Bugabula Bulumwaki Butongole: coming soon! Nabitovu: coming soon! Walukuba : coming soon!