NGOs partner to empower health centres in refugee-hosting areas

Environmental Alert together with Sudwind, an Austrian based NGO has launched a project named ‘Empower Healthcare in Uganda.’

The project that is targeting the Albertine region will reach out to health centres that are off-grid and in the hard-to-reach areas occupying the refugee settlement in Kibaale and Kikuube.

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These health centres will be given solar equipment to enable them to serve both the refugees and the hosting communities better.

Mr Lawrence Ssentongo, the Executive Director of Environmental Alert said that the four health centres they are starting with are on a pilot but hope for additional funding from the different stakeholders to scale it up to other places away from the Albertine region.

He said they undertook an assessment with their consultant, Baseline Africa that they contracted to carry out a professional assessment on the needs of these health centres and found out that maternity wards were not powered completely.

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“We felt that there is a need for us to step in and bridge the gap. We also found out that the vaccines that could have been kept in these health centres cannot be kept there due to the lack of power to refrigerate. We want to ensure that vulnerable groups of women and children access better services,” Mr Ssentongo said.

In his remarks, Dr Brian Isabirye, the Commissioner of Renewable energy at the Ministry of Energy, said the project is going to enhance the solarisation of health centres in the refugee-hosting communities.

“The project we are witnessing today is piloting the use of solar in the health centres. We think this is a breakthrough for this region because it will be possible for mothers to deliver within the facilities which saves time and money,” he said.

“We are looking at this project as a demonstration of us transitioning to cleaner sources of energy which will go a long way in supporting our efforts in moving away from the destruction of the environment, through sourcing for energy in unsustainable means such as cutting down biomass, so this project is quite timely because it addresses most of our aspirations under the SDG 7,” Dr Isabirye added.

Ms Pauline Nambi, the acting district natural resources officer in Kikuube District revealed how excited she is about the project saying it is going to do great work for them in streamlining the delivery of women at night.

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“I would advocate for concentrating on maintaining the old systems which have been installed such that instead of wasting a lot of money on the new ones, the old ones should also be renovated such that they are put back to use, and the money can be spent on other health centres which have not been catered for,” she said.