By Anna Baker, DIAS Supporter
I’m a midwife in Brisbane who is passionate about education. I want women in Uganda to access a safe place that can renew their health and restore hope. I want mothers, babies and the sick and vulnerable of Kyampisi to receive life and healing.
This is our vision for the Weema Clinic.
But it’s a project that has been long in the making. At times, amidst the setbacks and delays, it’s been challenging to keep that vision alive. But here we are, eight years later, and I’m so excited to see progress.
The clinic is part of KCM’s master plan to create a ‘hub’ of support, which includes a rehabilitation home, church and school. Although construction of the clinic building finished in 2014, we haven’t had the capacity or funds to hire staff or buy equipment and actually set up the clinic. So for almost five years, the building has been used as offices for KCM staff. But despite of the long wait, the vision has stayed alive!
Fast-forward to this year and KCM’s Director, Peter, was optimist he would receive the rest of the funds needed to make the clinic operational. I felt this optimism too, so in faith, I took the bold step of buying my flights to Uganda in early April and I started some fundraising for buying much-needed equipment.
Thankfully, just before our trip, we received enough donations to start fitting out the clinic! During the week I was in Uganda, we went shopping for equipment and started the process of recruiting four staff members – a clinical officer, nurse/midwife, nurse administrator, and lab assistant. We were also able to take over specific items people had generously donated. God is so faithful!
Ever since my last trip to Uganda, I’ve always wanted to run a midwifery workshop with local midwives and a health workshop with Kyampisi locals. Two other midwives, Emma Higlett and Sydney Rinn joined me to run these workshops. They had both been to Uganda with KCM several times, and are also passionate about the exact same thing. It was the perfect team!
Twenty midwives, all leaders in their workplaces throughout the Mukono District, came to our midwifery workshop. We learnt so much from each other and had the opportunity to pray for each one of them too. The second workshop was run with the church community of Kyampisi. We taught lessons in CPR and first aid, and ran sex education. We allowed space for everyone to be vulnerable and ask questions. Nothing like this had been run in Kyampisi before, and we definitely had some interesting questions to answer!
Although very quick, this was one of the most special and exciting trips I’ve had to Kyampisi. Some amazing things are happening in this community and it’s a privilege to be playing some part in it. Watch this space!
