Health Child: how access to information can contribute to health

Through Health Child, a community-based organisation, financially supported by Cordaid and facilitated by IICD, Betty has linked the mother of the boy with a specialised doctor so that he can be treated. This is just one example of how access to information is essential in the provision of basic health services in the community.

Prevention is better than cure

The sub-county of Masese, a fishing community in Jinja district of Uganda, is one of two sub-counties where a pilot Information Centre will be established. The centre will give people access to services, particularly Health Information Services, that will improve their quality of life. Health Child is the organisation behind the initiative. Its goal is to promote child health by reducing childhood illnesses and mortality. It therefore focuses on preventing illnesses that are common among children, such as malaria, Acute Respiratory Infections (ARI), diarrhoea, worm infections and anaemia. The project will consist of two complementary aspects. Firstly a health service to spread information about health directly within the community and an ICT component, in which community representatives are trained, improving their ability to access relevant health information via ICT tools including the internet, CD-ROMs and television.

Underpinning Health Child is the idea of an integrated and holistic approach to healthcare which focuses on the social, economic and organisational impact on the physical, mental, emotional and social development of a child. In line with this idea, the project will be targeting the families, particularly mothers, of children, by addressing issues such as family planning, childcare, pre-natal and maternal care. Alongside Masese, Health Child has identified two other communities - Kakira and Mafubira – that will be given access to improved information services.

Fighting a vital condition

Uganda’s child mortality rate is 88 deaths per 1,000 live births. This means that one out of every eleven babies born in Uganda will not make it to their first birthday. Of those who do manage to survive their first birthday, 69 out of 1,000 will die before reaching their fifth birthday. The overall under-five mortality rate is estimated to be 152 per 1,000 live births, which implies that one out of seven children in Uganda does not make it to their fifth birthday. During the first year of life, the first month is the hardest to survive. With a neonatal mortality rate of 33 deaths per 1000 live births, nearly 40 percent of infant deaths occur during the first month of life.

The eastern region of Jinja, where the two Information Centres will be set up, is a region that still experiences high rates of child mortality: 147 per 1,000 live births. As many organisations focus on the northern region which is now realizing positive health indicators (The area has been affected by a 20 year civil insurgency. Source: UBOS, 2006), many areas in Jinja and central Uganda remain ignored and large numbers of children still experience an increasing risk of illness and death before their fifth birthday.

Casting a wider net

The Information Centres will use a mixture of traditional and modern ICTs - from the internet, film and email to the telephone, eLearning and the radio - to deliver this vital health information to the families. Since the sub-counties constitute thousands of people, many of whom are illiterate, a structure has been put in place so that all women, regardless of their level of literacy, can profit from the services. Each sub-county consists of several smaller communities, so in order to disseminate the information as widely as possible, a female representative from each group will be selected and taught how to interact with the information that can be extracted from these various media sources. “In my community not everyone can read, nor do all the women understand English. Health Child selected me because I have enough skills to be trained and to work with the information in the centres”, says one of the women from Masese. She will be the spokesperson for the women in her group and will in turn help them to identify the potential health services they may require.

The Health Child project will run its pilot phase until 2010.