Uganda

Snapshot*
Population – 31.4 million
Internally displaced persons – 1.3 million
Refugees – 215,700 (Sudanese), 28,900 (Congolese), and 24,900 (Rwandan)
Life expectancy – 52 years old
Median age – 15 years old
Infant mortality rate – 66 deaths for every 1,000 live births
Fertility rate – 7 children per woman
HIV/AIDS rate – 4.1 percent
Infectious disease risk – Very high
Literacy rate –67 percent

Life in Uganda
In many ways, Uganda is a beacon of hope for Africa. After emerging from civil war in the late 1980s, stable leadership brought an invigorated economy, universal voting rights, and rule of law. While much of the country is on its way to peace and prosperity, northern Uganda has suffered two decades of one of the most horrific – and underreported - conflicts in the world. The rebel group, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), has fought to take over the country with an administration based on its interpretation of the 10 Commandments. Killing and mutilating those who have not joined their fight against the government, the LRA has tortured tens of thousands. The LRA has amputated arms, hands, and feet, and cut off lips, ears, and noses from men, women, and children.

An estimated 20,000 children have been abducted, forced into combat, and subjected to rape and torture. Forced to abandon their homes and livelihoods, more than 1.6 million – 90 percent of the rural population in the north - were displaced and forced to live in makeshift camps with little food, poor sanitation, and virtually no access to health care. Now, with the peace agreement in process, people are beginning to move home, but to face challenging conditions, like little cultivated land and few water sources. As a result, most people in northern Uganda are still dependent on World Food Program rations. In the southwest, Uganda has a different displacement crisis, as refugees from Congo, Burundi, Rwanda, Somalia, and Sudan continue to pour across the border, straining already limited resources.

Helping Communities Help Themselves
As the displaced in Uganda begin to move home, they face new challenges. In this transitional time, International Medical Corps (IMC) supports both returnees and displaced with the following services:

• Nutritional screening and supplemental feeding
• Livelihoods support
• Sexual and gender-based violence counseling and education
• HIV/AIDS awareness, prevention, counseling, care and treatment
• Alcohol and substance abuse prevention and response

International Medical Corps is implementing innovative programs to respond to other issues that compound Ugandans’ suffering. To combat the spread of HIV/AIDS, IMC offers confidential and voluntary testing services, as well as counseling and treatment for those who test positive.

International Medical Corps launched a cutting-edge program with UNICEF that combined nutrition activities with early childhood development interventions. The program emphasizes the link between balanced nutrition and psychosocial interaction in early childhood development by providing therapeutic feeding to malnourished children, while training their mothers in the critical role of love and play.

International Medical Corps also implemented the first program aimed at filling the need for targeted alcohol and drug prevention services. With one of the highest alcohol abuse rates in Africa, 75 percent of displaced men drink regularly, while 70 percent of camp households produce alcohol for income. The high abuse rate compounds existing issues, such as poverty and gender-based violence. To lower camps’ dependency on alcohol, IMC pioneered an innovative substance abuse prevention and response program that combines health education, group counseling, local media, and income generation projects.

Enabling Self-Reliance
To make these programs a permanent part of Uganda’s landscape, International Medical Corps works closely with the Ministry of Health and trains Ugandans to fill the following roles:

• Health care workers – Provide basic health services and supplementary nutrition through IMC-supported health and feeding centers
• Psychosocial officers – Offer psychological and emotional assistance to survivors of gender-based violence, substance abusers, and HIV-positive clients
• Community educators – Educate peers in basic health, such as preventable diseases and basic nutrition, as well as HIV/AIDS and gender-based violence prevention

By giving Ugandans the knowledge and skills they need to diagnose and treat basic health problems and counsel and educate their peers, International Medical Corps empowers Ugandans to resolve the challenges and conflicts their communities face. The success of this model is exemplified in IMC’s nutrition and psychosocial program, which inspired 10 groups of mothers to form their own groups based on what they learned.

Education and training are key, as International Medical Corps leads outreach efforts through its local staff to prevent sexual and gender-based violence, the spread of HIV/AIDS, and alcohol and substance abuse. IMC also helps to create permanent change for alcohol and substance abusers by adding a livelihoods program to its campaign so that participating households can generate income without producing alcohol.

You Can Help Build Change That Lasts
Relative peace has been established in Uganda although many still struggle to recover from years of ruthless bloodshed that claimed millions of lives and stole 20,000 children from their families. By supporting International Medical Corps’ work in Uganda, you are helping to rebuild the health – both physical and mental – of the survivors of one of the world’s most forgotten crises. Click here to help Uganda and other IMC programs worldwide.


*Statistics from U.S. Government