Summer Archives

Matt O'Keefe Bududa, Uganda - Foundation for International Medical Relief of Children (FIMRC) - Project Bumwalukani

A Hike Through the Mountains - A Time of Exploration

I started my summer project with an open mind and few expectations as I had no idea what it would be like to be living in Uganda for two months. I expected to be working in the clinic in some capacity, but I ended up spending much more time on outreach, working with FIMRC’s Orphaned and Vulnerable Children (OVC) program. This is a group of more than twenty HIV positive youth, aged five to sixteen. This was by far the best way to explore and interact with people in the village. Other volunteers and I would interview the children or their guardians about ways in which the OVC program could better function.

The OVC program has several important components, most notably the garden project. Each OVC is given a garden that they tend and can eat from, and FIMRC helps by spraying insecticides and by having an outreach worker visit every month to check on the child and the garden. Each child also receives a goat. During one of the visits, we were interviewing a family and asked the mother if her daughter had received the OVC goat. I will never forget this moment, as her daughter immediately gets up and walks out of the room, and we hear screeching. This little girl literally dragged the goat into her living room to show us that she had it. OVC’s also have a monthly meeting where they all gather at the clinic and play games and receive a meal and a health lesson.

We would typically visit several OVC’s in a day, and the terms “near” and “neighbor” took on entirely new meanings. I was incredibly impressed with the community as some families lived several miles from the road, or a source of water, and must walk down and then carry things back up to their homes.

I was also involved with FIMRC’s Post Test Club, a group of HIV positive adults, who work together to generate income and also help oversee the OVC program. We taught health lessons ranging from cancer to kidney disease. A few of the volunteers came together and purchased a goat and donated it to the Post Test Club, in order to breed more goats for the OVC program. I was responsible for delivering the goat to our guest house from the clinic and then to the Post Test Club meeting.

The rest of the time I worked in the lab and helped prepare blood tests for malaria and HIV, as well as entering information into the computer system, but I also took vitals, delivered prescriptions, and checked patients into the clinic.

For more, please visit Foundation for International Medical Relief of Children (FIMRC).