The health camp project was an idea for the health and wellbeing department for Kkuza Children’s Foundation. It was a response to the different health related challenges the community of Butambala encounters raised by the different stake holders in the community including the medical experts in Butambala, community leaders and members. From the assessment carried out prior to the health camp, it was identified that Butambala comprises of different individuals with different medical conditions given their age, gender and other determinants.
The community comprises of the infants and children, teenagers and youths, the adults and the elderly of both genders (male and female), different marital statuses and subscribing to different religions.
Being a covid-19 era, many individuals in Butambala had gone against getting vaccinated due to different unproven beliefs about the covod-19 vaccine which led almost the majority to not being vaccinated despite the free vaccine given by the government of Uganda.
We then realized that a major sensitization about the importance of getting vaccinated and correcting the misguided negative beliefs about the vaccine was supposed to be done first so as to increase the uptake of the covid-19 vaccine. With support from Gombe and Ngando hospitals, the District Health Officer, the VHTs and other leaders, we were able to organize platforms on which we sensitized the community about the benefits of getting vaccinated and also mobilizing them to get the vaccine from the health camp that was going to happen on the 27th of November 2020 at Lwamasaka Umea primary school. We also added other medical benefits on the package for the medical camp which included free doctors’ consultation, screening, diagnosing and treating common illnesses such as malaria, typhoid, cough, hypertension, diabetes, testing for HIV, counseling services, giving out free condoms, referral, among other services. And over 730 people benefited from this camp, join us in this year’s medical camp.
