Volunteer Week Part 2- Naguru Teen Health Clinic

The UN pulling up to our guest house (I got to ride in it!)
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On Monday, the day after our awesome rafting experience that also left me frustrated with the intervention policies of massive capitalist bodies like the World Bank, we met with the Kampala Chapter of the UNFPA. The United Nations Population Fund is a branch that never ceased to excite my hope in aid. Because it is not work we do for you, but work we do with you. Chapters are established where population demographics and trends demonstrate a need for certain improvements.

In Uganda, the population is growing at such a clip, that available resources and the pursuit of subsistence do not match up. In other words, poverty, overpopulation, and underemployment are all problems. The UNFPA operates on a holistic basis, always ready to include another facet and root cause or correlation. As sources of overpopulation and poverty continue to present roots in socialization, cultural mores, parental roles, the active underdevelopment of puppet governments and the residual stain of colonization (Uganda, remember, has only been independent for less than half a century), the UNFPA will attempt outreach in an appropriate form.

...and then I fell in love with the UNFPA

Inside the Clinic- Waiting Room
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In Uganda, the UNFPA introduced us to grass-roots and individual-level organizations and programs designed to empower youths and offset trends that disadvantage citizens. I’m being vague because there is such a list of opportunities for this type of service: the education of children on the reality of sex and HIV, in a culture where it was taboo to discuss such topics; the tweaking of socialization practices so that a woman is revered as equal, rather than merely a future mother; the distribution and maintained accessibility of medical services; and so forth.

figuring out the generator with our boss, Denis
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After our meeting, we drove to the Naguru Teen Health Clinic. There, in Kampala, with the help of aid and donations, is a clinic focused only on Ugandans ages ten to twenty-four. They offer testing, from malaria to HIV, and treatment, counseling, counseling, and more counseling, and care for new mothers- anything the citizen in that age range might need. And they operate without the help of American aid money, because they do not adhere to an abstinence-only rhetoric. There are condoms all over. Team-building and educational seminars are orchestrated in the guise of fun weekend activities, so students can get facts straight, learn to respect each other and their education, and feel empowered.

This place is an inspiration. We volunteered there mornings while in Kampala. While we organized their library, helped with administrative tasks like checking patients in, and counted countless pills into baggies for easy distribution, we got to know the employees and interns. We got to sit in on counseling sessions, and HIV testing visits. The air is heavy with anticipation inside the clinic. The mood shifts from friendly chatter in the front pews where teenagers wait, to the back benches where they keep courage up to get tested, or hear their results.

Counseling focuses on first that the teenager has come of his or her own volition, and that the test will be the first of many. Then the sessions empower those with negative results to continue a lifestyle of caution safety, and those with positive results to continue life without throwing everything away. For all the other pressing medical and social questions teenagers show up or call the hotline to ask, a counselor is willing to answer.

I worked first organizing the library, and then marking newspaper archives for relevant articles. You can imagine the last one was an inspiring journalist’s dream: reading the local newspaper from the last six years. Our cultures are displayed by our publications. The next day I helped in the pharmacy, joking around and refining my simple math and efficiency skills. The next day I worked at administration with a sweet intern named Patra, filling out the cards with the teenagers’ information as they walk in. Patients come from all over the region, not just the city center. The clinic is a gem in this region. Did I mention everything is free? For confidentiality, inpatient cards are marked only with the mother’s name, and never removed from the clinic. Teenagers were asked also for school status, religious affiliation, and region of residence as well. Sometimes they did not know their mother’s names. “She died before she could tell me” was the common response, Patra told me.

We were continually moved by the clinic, because our experiences there were at one moment jovial, and the next, heartbreaking. We learned to hide or still a buoyant spirit as we walked into the back- because the key for the bathroom was hanging inside the testing room. I began my time there smiling pleasantly at everyone. When I saw how selfish this move was, I desisted.

This place is making a difference for the next generation. You can feel it.