Health Child - Uganda

The goal of Health Child is to promote child health through the reduction of child illness and mortality. It focuses on preventing the occurrence of common illnesses among children including malaria, Acute Respiratory Infections (ARI), diarrhoea, worm infections and anaemia, amongst others. The project will consist of 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 to relevant health information via ICT tools including the internet, CD-Roms and television.

Uganda’s child mortality rate is 88 deaths per 1,000 live births. This means that one in every 11 babies born in Uganda does not make it to the first birthday. Of those who survive their first birthday, 69 out of 1,000 die before reaching their fifth birthday. The over all under five mortality rate is estimated at 152 per 1,000 live births. This implies that one out of seven children in Uganda does not survive to their fifth birthday. During the first year of life, the first month is the hardest to survive. With the 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 to the tune of 147 per 1,000 live births. As many organizations focus their attention to the northern region which is now realizing positive health indicators (Uganda Bureau of Statistics, 2006), many areas in Jinja and central Uganda remain ignored and many children still experience an increasing risk of illness and dying before their fifth birthday, this is why the Health Child Project was created.

• The resource center is operational, with community members attending training and given access to resources including handbooks, training materials on maternal and child health
• The website http://www.healthchild.info is operational. And staff is trained to edit and create content
• Preliminary work towards the production of locally adapted materials and information packs tackling substantive health issues has started

Main goals

• Improving the management of child illnesses and health of young mothers at household level and in communities
• Promotion of child and maternal health supported by ICTs

Objectives (Children) 

• To promote better management of child illnesses at household and community level through community sensitization and awareness promotion
• To prevent the occurrence of common illnesses and diseases among children such as malaria, diarrhoea, acute respiratory infections, anaemia etc at the household and community level
• To engage and sensitise children in the communities on the importance of personal health and to encourage promotion of health and hygiene in their families and the communities where they stay
• To encourage communities to innovate and promote use of locally available resources for promotion of sanitation and hygiene in the families and the community.
• To mobilise and sensitise key actors about the promotion of the right to health for the children.

Objectives (Young mothers): 

• To open dialogue between health workers and expectant mothers aimed at encouraging more deliveries at health facilities, antenatal and postnatal visits
• To empower young mothers with knowledge and skills for proper child upbringing and management of child illnesses
• To empower young mothers against vulnerability to sexual exploitation, the risk to HIV infection and uncontrolled pregnancies
• To promote male involvement in the health issues of their families through dialogue and appreciative inquiry sessions in the communities.

 Specific objectives:

• To install a health resources centre with internet connectivity for use by children and care givers in promotion of e-health, health education through distribution of IEC materials and using it as a centre for mobilisation of the community for promotion of child and maternal health
• To construct a website for Health Child with a portal for posting and sharing 6 success stories on the experiences in child care, maternal care and management of family planning by the grass roots women and health workers in selected health centers
• To use the ICT project as a launching pad for computerising health facility data to improve efficiency in health service delivery and sharing of information. This will be tried with at least one health facility.
• To computerise health facility data and data compiled by Health Child to enable proper planning at the health facility and district levels
• To use the ICT project as a tool for advocacy or promotion of health services for children and mothers through organising 1 annual meeting with local leaders
• To record, air and circulate success 18 stories and testimonies of women, men and other care givers who have participated in health matters of their families and how their participation has promoted the health of their families
•  To make 1 fixed and 2 mobile telephone communication lines available at the resource centre, in a health facility and among women groups.  This eases communication with Health workers at Health Child and within health facilities for counselling and advice in case of emergency in the areas of operation

The project’s end-users (young mothers, adolescents and men) acquired basic ICT skills, which enabled them to access health related information. The participants actually impressed the Health Child project staff with the knowledge they already gained on HIV/AIDS, sanitation and hygiene as a result of the health education sessions in which they participated, and they are now actively sharing this knowledge with other members in their community. Read more about IICD's approach towards Health.

To ensure that all target groups, and especially young mothers, get a fair chance to use the computers, a timetable has been made, where special time is reserved for each group to use the computers in the resource centre. This was done after staff observed that the resource centre was used mainly by students and men, which "discouraged" young mothers to use it. Also stricter adherence to this time-table is needed to make sure all target groups can optimally benefit from the services of the health resource centre.

As a result of the FG, Health Child staff resolved to design interventions on how they are going to ensure that the objectives of the project are known and clear to their end users e.g. reminding our end users what they are in every session held, as some end-users had expectations of the project (like finding a job) that cannot be met and were unrealistic. The staff also resolved to recruit trainee volunteers among students in order to address the need for more staff for computer training.