Telling Our Story Home » Submit a story » Calendars » FAQs » About » Stories by Region Asia » Europe & and Eurasia » Latin America & the Carribean » Middle East » Sub-Saharan Africa »
	USAID Information: USAID Country Page FY 2009 Congressional Budget Justification Selected USAID Reports Transition Initiatives in Uganda External Links: U.S. State Department CIA World Factbook World Bank Group
	Click for more stories from Sub-Saharan Africa
	RSS Feed for Recent Telling Our Story Updates

Serving the Community - Our own NGO

Photo: Hope Clinic Lukuli

The dedicated Hope Clinic staff

“Hope Clinic needed to exist, to serve the community. We worked with government and donors to bring USAID services to the community that needed it. "Adalina Lubogo, co-Chair.

The Government health system is overrun and under-equipped. The medics at those sites are not motivated to work, they have few of the necessary drugs and little supportive supervision. The nearest government staffed sites are 3 miles away - they are not accessible at night time and hence not for children with night-time fevers or women who have started to deliver their babies. The community need affordable access to fever management, safe pregnancies and HIV testing, care and support. The population are self-employed, often reliant on selling surplus crops from a smallholding of land. The population of 60,000 people living within 2 miles of a self-employed midwife need more services, advice on family planning, guidance on HIV prevention and prompt and accurate diagnosis of fevers.

Hope Clinic started with one dedicated midwife who just needed guidance and support to work with government and donors to deliver quality healthcare efficiently - and hence at fair prices. The founders are not medics and bring business and marketing skills to support their neighbours and help their community. In nine years, Hope Clinic has expanded services to include family planning, admissions for fevers, child and maternal health and public health education on nutrition, sanitation and improving income in poor households. The USAID support began with funding to Straight Talk publications to inform the youth; it funded the AIDS Information Centre counselling for VCT and PMTCT; it funded the family planning commodities; it funded the mosquito nets the pregnant women use.

Hope Clinic’s original sole midwife helped 50 people and delivered 5 babies a month in 2000. There was no microscope and no access to child vaccinations or HIV services. In 2008, recorded HIV prevalence was over 15%. USAID, through PEPFAR-funded programmes and the Malaria Initiative, have supported an indigenous NGO to grow steadily as the community better understood its rights to access health services and chose to utilise those services. USAID’s help to Hope Clinic allows free family planning, free child immunisation and free HIV services. Other services have fair prices through collaboration with the District Health Services. Hope Clinic serves over 1,000 out-patients a month. In the past year, 5,000 people had HIV tests - and all 46 HIV positive pregnancies had negative babies.

Back to Top ^