He rebuilt dilapidated health facility in 33 days

A marabou stork and dog dig their noses into a heap of garbage and at every lunge, flies rise and with them, a strong, putrid stench. A few metres away from the garbage, sits a young mother with a baby clasping at her breast.
Something needs to be done real quick to this dilapidated and vermin-infested health centre serving at most 20,000 patients a day.
The answer to the challenges at the facility was presented through a challenge titled Operation Health.

The challenge involved the demolition and rebuilding of the rundown Iyolwa Health Centre III, situated in Tororo District, eastern Uganda.
The centre has been functioning without power or running water, a ceiling on the verge of collapse, rodent and insect infestations and inadequate medical equipment for years now.
On the day Gonza Kagwa visited the health centre, there were more than 100 out patients. The narrow corridors were packed and so was under a tree shade, where patients were waiting for their turn to see a doctor.

Mothers, children and babies were on every available space. In his narrative to Huffington Post, an online American blog, Kagwa said a quick look through the two small buildings and it was clear it was not going to be a small renovation project.
“The floors were cracked and damp, the plaster on the walls was coming off, the ceiling was torn and hanging precariously and the stench in the buildings was so bad I could still smell it days later. Wasps, hornets, rodents, lizards - the place was teeming with wildlife,” he recalls.
The whole facility needed to be pulled down and a new structure built.

Kagwa rose up to the challenge of turning the centre into a modern one within 33 days. He was one of the several design contractors identified by researchers from the BBC (UK). Kagwa was selected following two rounds of interviews by a panel from the BBC, Comic Relief (UK) and ExMed (UK).
He is chief executive officer and head of design and concept development for Linear Consultants, a design, architectural and engineering firm with an extensive history of projects in Uganda and other parts of the world. He has more than 18 years’ experience in engineering and design of buildings.

For Kagwa, it was a unique opportunity to give to a community in need. He explains that from the onset, he was looking at ways of maximising the benefits to the community, not only from the end product but also through the design and construction stage.
Comic Relief (UK) was the project funder. It is a UK-based charity, with a vision of a just world, free from poverty. It works all year round to help make their vision a reality.

For each of the 33 days, Kagwa and his group worked hard and sweated for a good reason.
But more than the individual achievements, the architect appreciated the involvement of the community members in trying to improve a health facility that serves them.

“About 90 men and women from the Iyolwa community were on site every day. The effect of this achievement was felt all through the community - the builders, their families, the hardware shops, brick layers, the shops, bars, fishermen, farmers, school fees were paid on time,” Kagwa explains.

And while men, women and children got their hands busy, they were occasionally distracted by a number of celebrities who visited the remote site. The project was visited by more than 15 UK celebrities who got their hands dirty too, boosting the campaign to keep the morale alive.
From this, locals were mesmerised and motivated in almost equal measure. Their humility, sincerity and generosity, their stories and humour got fellow builders going.

British comedian John Bishop was one of the people who offered a hand to build a healthier future in Africa. The comedian said, “Everyone here has a story about malaria, traumatic birth or HIV, so it’s great to see your cash pay to build them.”
Bishop usually raises charity funds with tough sporting challenges. In Tororo, he did it with a hammer and plaster board. Greg James, a presenter on BBC radio, and Alex Jones, a filmmaker, also made it to Uganda to raise the Iyolwa Health Centre roof. Jones was enthralled being on the rooftop with local builders.

Media coverage
As he lent a helping hand, James reported from the site for a week for BBC Radio 1. And like that, each day was a major highlight in itself. The biggest highlight of all was the generosity of the British who donated a mind boggling £78 million (about Shs3.8 billion) from watching highlights of the building as well as other events earmarked for Red Nose Day 2015. It was a record shattering amount.
For the architect, there were too few days, many bodies at work but with limited skills but they were passionate and put their heart into the work at hand. Kagwa found fault in the quality of some of the local products but made good in putting up a good structure.

His team was big. “I had an architect and site engineer from my office and about 90 workers on any odd day.” When he was given green light as project architect, he sent word out into the villages of Tororo, but mainly Iyolwa. In a matter of hours, he had hundreds of people lining up outside his makeshift office.
There was no chance to phase work. “Well, first we set up a temporary hospital by assembling six port cabins with the help of Richard Hammond of the Top Gear show,” Kagwa recounts.

Job well done

Then it was full steam, lots of dust. Everything was done concurrently. The fruition of a month-old project was a new structure complete with solar power, clean water solar pumped every day for both the hospital and community manicured gardens.
The project would be followed daily by the British public as the highlight for the biannual Red Nose Day celebrations. There were two filming crews from the BBC on site.

This also meant jumping over cables, stopping to answer questions, and for the architect, many times the pressure became too much and he had to mind his language and he went about supervising the men at work.
He was able to size up to the challenge with guts, lots of planning, micro management of every aspect of the build, and a ‘nothing is impossible’ attitude. What made it terribly harder was that rather than use cement mixers, cranes and all manual stuff, going hi-tech was an option.

He chose to go labour intensive so the community could get every cent from this ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ present.
There were some light moments. Ged Healy and the cool team from ExMed made sure that the site and staff was well-protected from any danger.
“Dealing with funny man Lenny Henry who made my ribs hurt from laughing too hard,” the calm architect recollects. Henry is a British stand-up comedian and actor best known for co-founding charity Comic Relief and presenting various television programmes, including The Magicians for BBC One.

When the architect was putting final touches to challenge, at the back of his mind was a deep optimism that patients would no longer have to line dirty verandas or midwives having to deliver babies in an inhabitable facility sharing space with rats and people.
Operation Health is another project he is working on. He has volunteered at Salaama School for blind children, a primary school started in 1999 as a home care where the children go to attend lessons under an inclusive arrangement.
Kagwa says it is one of the most rewarding initiatives he has been fortunate enough to be involved in. Unlike back in the day, he can now afford much more time on his hands but he is already thirsting to do more good.

Kagwa’s call and experience of building Iyolwa Health Centre III

Gonza Kagwa is a family man, who is a bar entrepreneur in his other life, enjoys taking time off to relax as he sips on some frothy stuff. He began school at Kampala Kindergarten, went to Budo Junior for seven years. He then went to King’s College Budo for both O-Level and A-Level. He did architecture at University of Western Sydney.
“Getting a call from the BBC might be common practice if you work in the media in London but as an architect in Uganda it comes as quite a surprise when the phone rings,” Kagwa says of the phone call that changed his life.

It was late last year when I heard about Operation Health for Comic Relief. Putting aside the obvious question “How on Earth did they get my number?” I was immediately paralysed by the size and the timescales of the project. Renovating a dilapidated health centre in rural Uganda in just nine weeks sounded ambitious, but I was immediately sold and knew I had to be a part of it.

2013 had been a tough year. My father died after a two year battle with cancer and I took over the running of our business - Linear Consultants, an architectural and engineering consultancy firm in Kampala. Healthcare and access to medical treatment had been such a common topic of conversation in our family for so long that it seemed almost poetic when this building opportunity came knocking at my door.

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