Print
this page
Email
this page Provinces - The Church of the Province of Uganda
In 2002, the population of Uganda was estimated at 24.7 million people. The population is now estimated at 28.2 million with a growth rate of more than 2.0% and fertility rate of nearly 7 children per woman. During 2002 census, the Christian population was estimated at about 90% with 11 million Anglicans 38% of the total Christians.
The Church of Uganda started in 1877 when the first missionaries arrived in Uganda. The Native Anglican Church, (NAC) became independent from the Church of England at the beginning of the sixties and became the Church of the Province of Uganda known as the Church of Uganda. The Church has grown, expanded and spread to every part of the country. There are 32 dioceses, 4,000 parishes and more than 35,000 congregations. The church network in social services includes hospitals, health centres, schools and colleges.
Current Situation and Magnitude of HIV/AIDS in Uganda
Uganda has braved the brunt of a severe and generalised HIV epidemic for almost a quarter of a century. Currently, almost one million people are estimated to be infected with HIV (6.4% of adults aged 15-49 years) and about 0.5% of children aged less than 5 years2. In 2005, about 132,489 people were infected, 27,436 of then through prenatal transmission.
Women and urban residents are more disproportionately affected, with national HIV prevalence estimates among women being 7.5% relative to 5.0% among men and 10.2% among urban residents relative to 5.7% among their rural counterparts. The urban-rural disparity is stronger for women than for men with HIV prevalence of 13% among urban women compared with 7% among rural women. HIV prevalence among urban men is 7 percent compared with 5 percent for rural men.
Women are more highly affected at younger ages compared with men. For instance, male: female ratio among teenagers aged 15-19 years is 1:9 and among young people 15-24 years is 1:4. HIV prevalence for women is generally higher than for men between the ages of 15-49 years, but the pattern reverses after the age of 50 years where HIV prevalence is slightly higher among men than women.
By region, HIV prevalence ranged from a lowest of 2.3% in West Nile to 8.6% in the Central region. The Central region, Kampala and mid-northern areas in the country have the highest HIV prevalence. The Northern region also appears to have the highest HIV incidence that is about 3 times that of other areas in the country. Other population groups with disproportionately higher HIV prevalence include commercial sex workers (CSWs), newly married, widowed, divorced or separated individuals, STI patients, uncircumcised men and men and women in the highest wealth quintile.
Church Human Service AIDS Programme (CHUSA)
CHUSA, the HIV/AIDS programme of the Church of the Province of Uganda, was born out of the Church of Uganda Leadership Conference on HIV/AIDS of August 1991. This conference brought together all Bishops and other diocesan leaders under the guidance of the then Archbishop, the late Dr Yona Okoth, to discuss the new epidemic. One of the resolutions at that historic conference was to set up an AIDS DESK in the Archbishops office to develop programmes to combat HIV/AIDS, coordinate activities and advise the Archbishop and the whole church on HIV/AIDS and other related matters.
As a result of the resolution, the Church of Uganda was, perhaps, the first church worldwide to be involved fully in HIV/AIDS education, prevention and care activities. This is because, the AIDS DESK was created and it initiated the Church Human Services AIDS programme (CHUSA).
CHUSA began its work at the end of 1992 with a Programme Manager and a Training Supervisor, 4 Trainers, two Drivers and two vehicles and office support staff.
CHUSA operates intensively in 5 (five) dioceses of Bunnyoro-Kitara, Kampala, Lango,Mbale and Mityana covering, 10 government districts of Apac, Hoima, Kampala, Kibale, Kiboga, Lira, Masindi, Mbale, Mityana sub-district and Mubende.
CHUSA Vision
A Church fully participating in the eradication of HIV/AIDS in Uganda.
CHUSA Mission
To strengthen the response of the Church of Uganda to the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
CHUSA Funding and BaselineAn agreement was signed between Church of Uganda and the United States Agency for International Development, USAID, to provide CHUSA with funding for 2 years. However, prior to implementing the CHUSA programme, a baseline knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) survey was conducted in two of the Dioceses - Lango and Mityana.UNICEF SupportA Memorandum of Understanding was signed between Church of Uganda and UNICEF forIEC and advertising materials for the Annual AIDS Awareness Month and the National AIDS Day of Fasting and Prayer at the beginning of November.
Programme Objective
The programme objectives for CHUSA are;
- Scale up HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention;
- Scale up prevention among the youths with emphasis on abstinence and being faithful;
- Provide basic clinical and palliative care;
- Fight and reduce stigma and discrimination related to HIV/AIDS;
- Provide care and support to orphans and other vulnerable children;
- To strengthen the CHUSA coordination capacity.
CHUSA Activities
Armed with baseline results and the various support, CHUSA went into the field with vigour and determination. All the Church leaders at Diocesan level (24 Dioceses) were sensitised through 3 day residential conferences. 96 Diocesan Trainers were trained in the five Dioceses.The trained Community Health Educators worked as volunteers and reached 736,218 sexually active people with HIV/AIDS prevention messages and other related information. The volunteers reached more than 150,000 households, hundreds of Church congregations and markets and other gatherings. These figures do not include the children reached both in homes and in schools.
SYFA Project
A youth programme known as Safeguard Youth From AIDS ( SYFA) was initiated through UNICEF and it is operated in schools and among the out of school youths using the Boys and Girls Brigade. SYFA covered another 8 dioceses and trained more than 100 trainers and thousands of peer educators.
TB and Malaria Programme Implementation
The Church of Uganda also implements TB and malaria programmes through her health and medical institutions such as hospitals and health centres.
Monitoring and Evaluation Strategy
- Church of Uganda (COU) implements HIV/AIDS activities through its structures e.g. dioceses,, hospitals, which outreachesto communities;
- The communities are empowered with basic skills to monitor their activities,
- collect primary data and report through COU structures;
- M & E tools are developed and agreed upon by stakeholders (including beneficiaries);
- The communities (beneficiaries) are supervised by the Structural Focal Persons e.g. Diocesan Health Coordinators;
- The Focal Persons are also oriented and given basics skills in project management and monitoring. They report monthly to COU;
- COU technical staff carry out quarterly site support supervision;
- Independent Consultants are hired to carry out evaluation ;
- HIV/AIDS Program has M&E Manual to give direction to M&E planning, data collection, reporting and feed back.
Programme Achievements
(a) PMTCT Services
- 64,000 ante-natal clinic attendance with 9,900 deliveries through the Church health institutions;
- 167 PLWHA provided with food aid, and 180 PLWHA provided with home based care kits;
- 60 Clinical personnel trained on PMTCT
- 24,505 People counselled and 16,645 were tested through the Church health institution
- 933 PLWHA provided with home base care kits;
- 2,081 PLWHA given treatment for opportunistic infections;
- 2440 ITNs provided to PLWHA and 1654 PLWHA given nutrition support;
- 1,105 Community members trained in VCT mobilisation;
- 529 PLWHA trained in succession planning and 115 Medical staff trained
- 1,791 Primary caregivers trained in home based care, 165 Community volunteers trained on VCT services and 43 Community Counselling Aides trained;
- 243 Church leaders trained in care & support for PLWHA
Programme Challenges
- Stigmatization of PLWHA affects womens capacities to disclose their positive sero-status;
- Inadequate manpower at the sites leading to increased clientele caseload;
- The programme does not have adequate resources including personnel, and designated funds for specific interventions;
- The support targeted individual child rather than the whole childs family;
- The late disbursements of funds made it difficult to monitor implementation and reporting;
- Deficiency in management practices (e.g. financial & record keeping);
- The fluctuations in the foreign exchange rates;
- Inadequate funds paused a great challenge such as inability to provide food supplement to the clients who needed consistent nutrition;
- Over-whelming demand for the HIV/AIDS services and less for Malaria and TB;
- Unstable funding affected programme sustainability. This led to avoidance of long term commitments.
Lesson Learnt
- Church institutions can do a better job in HIV/AIDS activities through their communities and congregations;
- Both spouses should be encouraged to fully participate in the affairs of their families. IEC materials should be produced in local languages;
- Funds to run the programme should be availed in time and alternative source of funds should be sought;
- It would be more appropriate to allocate a bigger proportion of the OVC grants to supporting guardian families rather than individual OVC;
- There is an increasing number of OVC and therefore more support is needed;
- Appropriate phase out or disengagement strategies should be designed so that programs for OVC are not abandoned mid-way;
- Networking mechanism should be devised and expanded;
- Design of the projects should involve and consider real rather than presented problems of the beneficiaries, with pre set interventions that are normally determined by the donors;
- There is need to consider focusing on, options that encourage community fostering and adoption of OVC to enhance community childcare and support.
Top
