HIV
Webmasters December 6, 2021 2 Comments

WORD AIDS DAY

 

This is the day when the world comes together to create awareness about HIV/AIDS.  1st of December every year is World AIDS Day. The 2021 theme is “End inequalities. End AIDS.” But have thought of volunteering to help those with the disease or something like that choosing to volunteer in people affected with the disease I think it’s the best thing ever.

When the COVID-19 pandemic break out the infected people found it different access the health services. The country was in a continuous lockdown which made transport means on standstill. Therefore this made it hard for both the patients and doctors who work in that field and for the patients too. This made them more dependent on assistance. People had difficulty accessing HIV treatment slowed down as the treatment and also HIV testing services. Non-diagnosed new infections were on the rise. The newly diagnosed had not started treatment yet which broke the link to HIV treatment. The global increase in viral load testing slowed considerably. And lastly, closed mental health care support services.

The repeated visits to HIV clinics to collect medicines put at risk of contracting COVID-19. The pressure of dealing with both the HIV and the COVID-19 pandemic caused an impact on the mental health of people living with HIV.

The interrupted hive preventive programs. Preventing vertical transmission programs like Voluntary medical male circumcision, PrEP, and other prevention options were impacted. COVID-19 put many children out of school which has put children’s health. Most especially the girls at higher risk of contracting HIV. The harm reduction access for people who use drugs has been curtailed.

There has been an increase in gender-based violence during the lockdowns. Sexual harassment and other forms of violence against women continue on the streets, in public spaces, and online.

The risk of transmitting HIV to your partner is much higher when you stop taking medication since the viral load will go up. The economic fallout forced patients to make tough choices as some patients were prioritizing food over medicine. This was because taking drugs without eating would make one dizzy and sometimes bring stomach ulcer pains. So one has to wait when food is available and they swallow the meds.

During the COVID -19, some HIV caregivers were delivering food and drugs to their patients and some volunteers ride long distances around Kampala but not everyone could access these essentials.

So the question comes out “how can you volunteer?” And “what should you carry?” When you drink tea with them, hug them, showing them that you care for them you will not get infected with HIV. Choosing volunteers for HIV patients is simply encouraging them to take their drugs as recommended by the doctors this will enable them to remain on drugs and take them at the right time.

Secondly by encouraging them to eat a balanced diet and also providing them with food and related foods like fruits that help in building the immunity to fight other diseases.

Thirdly, you can volunteer by offering guidance and counseling to the patients. This is to help them regain confidence and also to know that somebody else cares for them. Many people when they are told that they have the disease they think they are going to die any time soon. Guidance and counseling restore hope to them in the picture that they can leave longer as those without the disease and that they can work as before.

By offering those clothes and other materials to the patients is also a sign of volunteering. Many affected people don’t have clothes and cannot access most of the basic needs of life. So by choosing to provide them with basic needs you are lying a hand.

In a nutshell, volunteering is the best way of restoring hope to the people affected with HIV as well as the impacts of COVID-19. When tested is the only way to know your status. To reduce the risk use condoms, ensure that your partner who is living with HIV is taking treatment. Furthermore use PrEP to prevent getting HIV if you have ongoing risk. Choose to volunteer, donations and do charities to help those living with HIV. We as Volunteering in Uganda our aim is “Work For A Cause” under our program of HIV/AIDS program. In partnership with Love Uganda Foundation, Tuyambe, and Love Uganda Safaris we can change people’s lives for the better.

 

 

 

 

 

Webmasters January 28, 2021 2 Comments

KNOW MORE ABOUT VOLUNTEERING UGANDA

Volunteering in Uganda is an NGO initiative aimed at reaching out to the various needs within the Ugandan society through volunteerism. The organization has the objective of availing an opportunity to everybody. That has a zeal for changing and transforming a society positively. Through the provision of a platform and hands-on involvement in the support process. Through its partnership with Love Uganda Foundation, Volunteering in Uganda intends to “make volunteerism a relevant, purposeful engine for democracy and sustainable communities today, and by so doing, create a vibrant purposeful society tomorrow.”

Also known as “Footprint Volunteer Uganda“, the organization has diverse programs. That is to say the elderly program, disabled program, HIV/AIDS program, Youth program. Childcare program, widows program, water, and sanitation program, healthcare human rights, and development program. All the above programs are catered for within the organization’s four major programs which are; The Community Development Program, The Healthcare program, The Education/teaching program, and The Childcare/Orphanage program. Each of these programs is specifically and carefully arranged. To cater to the needs of the different beneficiaries of the Organization.

The Community Development Program

believes that through training local farmers, helping the local women groups. Sensitizing women, and child advocacy, volunteers can be able to cause a rewarding impact on society.    This program involves working alongside people within the local communities, engaging in developmental programs through education.  Women`s empowerment, environmental monitoring, income-generating activities, health management, and mapping. The Women Empowerment program and the Youth Empowerment Program fall under the Community Development program.Volunteering in Uganda

Under the Women Empowerment Program,

Volunteering in Uganda notes, “If you want to change a culture, to empower women, to improve basic hygiene and healthcare, to fight high rates of infant mortality, the answer is to educate girls”.

It is for this reason that this volunteer program is steered. Towards the creation of better welfare and socio-economic development for women.  From poor areas both within rural areas and Uganda`s capital city – Kampala.

Through many projects, for example, teaching the English language to young women, providing training on proper account keeping to women in small finance groups. Participating in, as well as initiating awareness-raising activities in various issues. Working with women in their farms, arranging activities to improve the self-confidence and educational development of women. Working with Love Uganda Foundation local staff to train women, etc. All the volunteer programs are aimed at ending discrimination against women in the most marginalized communities.

The Youth Empowerment Program

is geared towards supporting the youth, who demographically, make up 78% of Uganda`s population. Making it the youngest population worldwide. UNICEF defines youth as being between the ages 15-24years. Unfortunately, despite being the majority of the country being young and vibrant. Statistics show that the unemployment rate in Uganda is 83%, with 3.2% of Uganda Youth working for waged employment.  90.9% work for informal employment, and 5.8% are self-employed. It is thus Volunteering in Uganda`s desire to changes these statistics through availing opportunities for volunteers. To support the youth in Uganda by sharing success stories, the impartation of skills. Such as leadership to the youth, and where the need is, grant financial support to them. The youth are also encouraged to take part in community stimulating activities.

Under the Healthcare program,

Volunteering in Uganda aims to improve health in rural communities by educating and engaging people in health programs.  Volunteers with a medical background and public health. Volunteers in this program are taken to some of the rural hospitals, clinics, communities, or orphanages. Where they provide checkups, basic medical care, early intervention services, family planning information, etc. Volunteering in Uganda understands that Health is a basic human right. And as a result, it put in place such programs to ensure that the vulnerable people in Uganda can access them.

Recognizing that the Right to Education is a fundamental human right,

Volunteering in Uganda seeks to make access to that right possible for as many children as it can reach. Through its Education/Teaching Volunteer program. Under this, volunteers work in government and public schools. Mainly teaching children aged between 4-16 years in English, Maths, Geography, Religious Education, Entrepreneurship, General Knowledge, and Physical Education. This particular field requires the volunteer to be compassionate and can care for and relate with children. Through fun and outgoing activities that can grab the interest of the children. And creative teaching methodologies with which they can easily learn. Volunteers under this program are required to work for 4-5 hours each day, for five days a week.

Childcare program

Finally, Volunteering in Uganda has a volunteer program set up to render support to the orphaned, poor and marginalized children of Uganda. Through its Childcare program. This program seeks to reach out to children who have not acquired parental support. That they need and have faced several challenges in life. Under this program, Volunteers can support and love orphans. Under the care of Love Uganda Orphanage which is based in Kalagi – Mukono. The orphanage is home to 30 vulnerable children aged between 3-15 years. Among those who are disabled children, those that were abandoned, and some of them living with HIV/AIDS. This Volunteer program also reaches out to 300 other children under the external child care program. Where the organization gives support to very poor single families. Within this program, volunteers can participate in the rescuing and restoration of hope to such vulnerable children.

Seeing as the world has partnered to create a positive and long-lasting impact globally through the UNDP’s Sustainable Development Goals. Volunteering in Uganda is actively playing her role, with emphasis on SDG No. 1-No poverty, SDG No. 3- Good health, SDG No.4- Education, and SDG No. 5- Gender equality. It is thus a call to action for all those with a passion for causing and participating in the creation of a world. That can support the existence of life today, as well as enable a fruitful life for future generations. Through either partnering with Volunteering in Uganda or giving to the cause.

Teaching in Uganda
Webmasters November 2, 2020 120 Comments

TEACHING GOES BEYOND THE PROFESSION.

Teaching in Uganda

Teaching goes beyond the profession

A lot of attention has been put on education and not much on the educator or teacher. Education is both systematic and progressive and without education or learning, an individual is bound to become a public nuisance. Nelson Mandela once said that ‘Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.’ And truly for the world to change, much more emphasis needs to be put on education and teaching.

For education to take place, there must be a teacher, and sometimes life is our teacher and other times it is individuals. We must learn that teaching goes beyond the profession. A teacher has been defined as a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence or virtue. So it`s not about the profession as much as it is about the person. It has been discovered that the first teacher any child has is his/her mother. Right from the womb, the fetus begins to pick signals from their mother and these signals are translated to affect their development. It’s the individuals that we meet on a daily that become teachers to us because from our various interactions with them, we learn to deal with many stresses and how to relate with people.

Teaching goes beyond the profession because, for a teacher to have a long-lasting impact, there must be passion, love, vision, a dream and the game-changer attitude within a person. A true teacher looks beyond what they will benefit from the service that they give and focus on what the learner has to gain. The beauty of it is that we don`t need to sit in classrooms for us to be teachers or learners because every day we meet potential teachers and students. It is our attitude towards them that determines what they will at the end of the interaction, walk away with.

Love and hatred, morality and ethics, good and bad, kindness and mercy; all these are not taught and learnt in a classroom. Some of these are learnt on the streets, others in market places and others from inconvenient places.

It means that we are all students and we are all teachers. We will always be teachers because it is our experiences that we teach and impart into others. Our interactions with others, the places we have been to and the events that take place in our lives make us teachers.

Some people choose to take up the teaching profession so that they can mentor, guide and impart skills into others as a way of changing them. Then some people are teachers at heart, and they go out of their way to make it possible for other people to become better. They source out for information that will empower others, and they look beyond the situations and limitations they might face and adopt better means of engaging their learners.

Many of these teachers fall under the informal education sector and they teach tremendously well. They teach soft skills, vocational skills, morals, ethics and values in society that group the emotional and psychological being of many individuals.

Now that you know that you are a teacher and the world is full of your students, you must build upon yourself and your interaction with the world. Become intentional about everything that you do because like it or not, the world is watching. And even though not everyone may care, there is a high probability that many people are picking the signals that you give off and these inform their world views. Be kind.

Sometimes we want to share our skills and are passionate about making an impact on hearts that are ready and willing to receive from us but we are limited by whom to contact. Look and believe, then you will see those grounds. And if it so happens that you are not a teacher by profession, find a community to volunteer. Talk to the local leaders in a particular region, let them know what your passion is and the motivation behind it and set it rolling.

If your passion stirs the desire to travel in order to do so, don`t hesitate, take a bus or a plane and travel to the grounds that will receive the seed you want to sow. We are sure that there are many people with a desire to learn but have limited access to teachers.  These will gladly receive you with open hands.

You could visit Volunteering in Uganda and let us give you the opportunity to teach under our community Development Program . Be it a skill, a story, a song or any lesson that is valuable and relevant for the social, mental and spiritual development of the child and other community members; we will avail the learners to you.

We are all teachers because it is much more than the profession. So let`s teach and forever learn.

The benefits of volunteering
Webmasters January 15, 2019 1 Comment

THE BENEFITS OF VOLUNTEERING

The benefits of volunteering

It is always hard to find time to volunteer due to our busy lives. However, the avails of volunteering are enormous to you, your family plus the community. The right match helps you reduce stress, find friends, connect with the community, learn new skills and also advance your career. Offering service to others can also help protect your mental and physical health.  Learn more of the interests of volunteering below.

Volunteering connects you to others; one of the well-known avails of volunteering is the impact on the society. Volunteering connects you to your community and make it a better place. Even taking part in the smallest tasks can make big and real difference to the lives of people.

Volunteering is a two way street, it benefits you and your family like the cause you choose to help. Offering your time as a volunteer helps you to expand your network, boost your social skills and also make new friends.

Read more

volunteer programs in Uganda
Webmasters November 29, 2018 2 Comments

VOLUNTEER PROGRAMS IN UGANDA.

Volunteer programs in Uganda

Uganda is one of the developing countries in the world, where more than quarter of the population still struggle with illiteracy, poverty, lack of sanitation facilities and better health care. However, you can contribute towards making their condition better by undertaking a volunteer program in Uganda.

In Uganda, there are many volunteer programs which you can participate in and change the lives of the vulnerable and needy communities. Some of the unique programs are mentioned here below; Read more