Heeding the call to touch lives through health projects

At a health fair at Kasokwe Primary School, Iwembe, Bugiri District, a day before Women’s Day, a small woman in a green T-shirt can be seen moving from one station to another, ensuring that everyone is getting the services they need.

Each station, manned by a healthcare organisation, is offering different services such as dental care, male circumcision, antenatal services, and cervical cancer screening, HIV testing.

In the multitude of school children and villagers seeking free medical checkups, it is easy to ignore Sandra Muhanuka. But her dreadlocks and very light skin stand out.

This is the fifth health fair the Hind’s Feet Project (HFP) has organised. Muhanuka founded the project in 2013 to provide health information to rural people.

“We keep talking about empowering peasants, but how is that possible when they lack information about their health?” she asks when we meet again in Ntinda, Kampala.

“I lost my father to B-cell lymphoma cancer in 2010 but I believe if we had accurate information about his condition, he would have survived. The doctors thought he had a herniated disc and recommended surgery. During the operation, they discovered it was not a hernia after all, but a black mass indicating cancer.”

The lack of clarity in the information provided opened the registered nurse’s eyes to the gaps in Uganda’s health system.

“People were too timid to ask for explanations from their doctors and they did not seek second opinions. I kept wondering about the people in the villages where health seeking behaviour is alien if this is happening in Kampala,” she says.

Letting go
By the time of her father’s illness, Muhanuka was a researcher at The John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. One of her patients, whom she saw once every three months, encouraged her to get out of the rat race.

“My duty was to counsel him in his condition, instead he was the one giving me advice,” she recalls, with a smile. “He talked about the freedom of being free like it was something everyone should experience.

A life free from materialism suddenly seemed attractive.”

Around the same time, Muhanuka was having doubts about the purpose of life. Single and with no children to hold her down, she decided to take time off from life. “I do not know if I will go back.

At first, when I came in 2013, I followed my passion for gardening, keeping a small garden at my home in Ntinda.”

Being a born-again Christian, helping others is a calling, which is why spiritual counselling and prayers are among the services offered for free.

Because HFP was not funded at the time, the work was done by volunteers. Within a space of a few months, 22 permanent volunteers had turned up.
Although they are fully employed elsewhere, when it is time for a health fair, the volunteers set aside everything and pool resources together to buy fuel, drugs, and food for the fair.

The health fairs
“At first, we only wanted to educate people about their health but they started asking for medicine as well. We realised that information without solutions was not really helpful.”

The project decided to approach partners such as Marie Stopes Uganda, Mothers2Mothers, Red Cross Uganda and clinicians from local hospitals to provide services at the health fairs.
However, HFP had to find funds to facilitate their partners. During the first fair at Bushuro football playground in Kabale, HFP paid Shs 5,000 for every woman who was screened for cervical cancer by Marie Stopes. The money was donated by the volunteers and more than 120 women turned up.

With five fairs under their belt in one year, HFP is seeking opportunities to travel all over the country. Fairs have so far been held in Kabale (twice in Bushuro-Mwisi and Kamuganguzi), Arua (Mvara), and Bugiri (Kasokwe).

Securing funding
“Funding is our greatest challenge. Our health fairs last only a day but we would like to make them at least two days.

Recently, Airtel Uganda came on board and now caters for the facilitation of our partner organisations, buys the drugs and caters for our accommodation,” she explains.

Being helpless in the face of life-threatening conditions wrings Muhanuka’s heart. “We might not have a particular drug stock yet we will save someone. You find yourself giving money to help the person buy the drugs at a dispensary.” At one health camp, a woman had lesions in her cervix, which were probably cancer and she had lived with them for a long time. “I could only counsel her to go to the Uganda Cancer Institute at Mulago but even then, I was thinking about how she would get there without any money.”

A referral letter was written by the medical officer but they knew that it was useless unless a Good Samaritan came along. “At least the information about her condition has empowered her to make a decision. She could decide to sell her goats to facilitate her treatment.”

Background
Born in a family of seven children to John and Elsie Muhanuka, Sandra Muhanuka attended Kampala Parents School, Gayaza High School and Makerere College School, before studying Biology (minoring in Chemistry) at the University Of Massachusetts Boston, USA.
She returned in 2001 and worked in the HIV/Aids sector before leaving for Canada in 2003 for a Master’s degree in Nursing at the University of Alberta, Edmonton.
Voluntary work captured Muhanuka’s attention in 2008 when, together with her father, she resolved to motivate the Primary Seven class at Bushuro Primary School in Kabale by giving them breakfast for the month leading to their Primary Leaving Examinations.

“Few village children attend afternoon classes because they are too hungry to concentrate,” she says. “A USA-based NGO heard about our initiative and took over from us, giving the children porridge for breakfast and lunch. I joined their US office as a voluntary worker.”

She also volunteered as a nurse for Somebody Cares, a US-based organisation that runs outreach programmes in housing projects (ghettos). “Anita Cox, who founded Mpambara-Cox Foundation, is my role model and good friend. She brought my attention to the urgency of ‘now’. What are you doing now with your life? When you see a need in the community, do you act upon it or ignore it?”

It is two years since she last received a salary and she is content. “When you give to the poor, you lend to the Lord. Maybe if I had children I would not have had the time to volunteer my time and resources.” About her status, Muhanuka says she hopes to meet that someone and get married one day but she refuses to put her life on hold for that day.

The need for community service

Is it important to volunteer to help others?
Volunteering brings you to a level where you can understand your own vulnerability. You did not give God anything to make you perfect or comfortable. Neither did other people sin against Him to warrant poverty and misfortune. Consider volunteering as giving back to God a small token of appreciation for your life. It will liberate you to live freely.

Call or duty?
For me it was a call, but it should be everyone’s duty. We are supposed to be selfless and give others a chance to live like we do. There are many organisations that need volunteers so give a few hours of your life to a cause.
You can volunteer to mentor UPE pupils or if you are a lawyer, to FIDA or even just take a box of books to the primary school near you. If you do not have free time, then give money.

How does one start?
Look for something that interests you. I am a public health professional choosing the health sector was kind of automatic. Just look for the positive thing you can do in every situation.
Start and people will partner with you along the way. Most of our partners have come on board after they saw our impact in the society.

How do you keep your emotions in check?
By believing that however powerless and hopeless a situation may be, your presence there is making a difference. Even if I do not have the money to offer treatment to someone, at least I got them to know that there is a problem so they can apply their energy to seeking solutions.