HIV/Aids stigma fuelling mother-to-child infection

Sustained stigma continues to undermine the fight against the HIV/Aids scourge and remains a major cause of mother- to-child infection in Uganda, activists have said.
The plight of thousands of mothers and children affected by it, lingers on as Uganda today joins the rest of the world to mark the World Aids Day.

The story of Adriane Akankunda, offers an eloquent illustration of experiences of thousands of children born with HIV. She holds her mother tightly as though to ease the pain caused by the soars in her mouth and rashes on her neck. Akankunda, just three-years-old, contracted HIV from her mother, who fearing stigma, weaned her after six months “because she was afraid people will know that she is positive.” HIV-positive mothers are advised to wean their babies after three months to prevent the transmission of the disease.

Ms Gloria Ahimbisibwe, Akankunda’s mother, explaining her daughters condition says: “I think she looks like that because she has not yet started taking ARVs, the doctor says that she is not yet fit for ARVs so at the moment she is still on septrine.”

Daily infections

As the world commemorates World Aids Day today under the theme, “Getting to Zero” with three targets of zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination and zero Aids-related deaths, Uganda is still grappling with the fight against pediatric HIV whose major cause is mother-to-child transmission.

Statistics show that more than 1,000 children contract HIV from their mothers daily.
Dr Godfrey Esiru, the national coordinator of prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) in the Ministry of Health, says unprotected sexual intercourse with an HIV -infected person is the cause of 80 per cent of the HIV cases in Uganda.

A journalist guide on pediatric HIV from Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric Aids Foundation and Star South West, shows that more than 90 per cent of the HIV infections in children in Uganda result from mother-to-child transmission.

Dr Esiru said out of 1.5 million pregnant mothers, 96,000 of them are infected and because of no interventions, 30 per cent of these mothers infect their children leading to 27,000 infected babies every year where two-third of them die before three years.

While a number of prevention measures such as male circumcision and Abstinence, Being faithful and Condom (ABC) use, have been in place to fight HIV and eliminate pediatric HIV by 2015, statistics show that Uganda is not making any significant improvement.

A report on the status of Paediatric HIV in Uganda indicates that by 2008, Uganda registered 25,000 children with new cases of HIV.

Minimal trials for child vaccines

By 2010, 22,000 new infections were registered and these were due to mother-to-child transmission.

Dr Moses Walakila, the technical Director at Elizabeth Glaser Paediatric Aids Foundation, Paediatric HIV mostly pronounced in upcountry areas where few families access family planning.

“So even in cases where a couple knows that they are positive and thus do not want to conceive any more, the fact that they have no access to family planning, they will conceive and lack of knowledge on how to help such a mother at birth by nurses will easily lead to the passing on of the virus to the baby,” he explains.

Mr Paul Mayende from Baylor-Uganda said the greatest challenge to the prevention of mother-to-child infection is the absence of available services.

“Much as over 1,500 health facilities can provided prevention of mother to child transmission services, only about 30 per cent of expectant mothers deliver from a health facility. This implies that majority of the mothers giving birth from other places other than the health facilities have their infants exposed to HIV.”

November Food Security Workshop

This month's food security training workshop was in Kyewanula Village. Attended by 26 farmers, ICOD Action Network Staff trained local farmers groups in basic permaculture design and farmer's group dynamics and team work. Our training workshops always begin with a video show from different parts of the world that have been transformed through sustainable agriculture practices. This month's video was DIRT. Farmers later took part in brainstorming ideas on how a community demonstration garden will be designed.

Pictures: Seva Gandhi

ICOD Action Network and Project Focus on Global Activism Series again

(From wbez.org website)

Combatting HIV-AIDS and poverty in Lyantonde, Uganda

Every Thursday on Global Activism, we hear from a local individual who works to make the world a better place.

Ahabwe Michael is executive director of the ICOD Action Network, based in the Lyantonde district of southwestern Uganda. His organization responds to socioeconomic challenges in his society like HIV/AIDS, high unemployment, insufficient health care, poor sanitation and famine. He says he began his work because he wanted make a difference.

Listen to the show on this link http://goo.gl/AI7WZ

Thanks for your continued support.

Food security: challenges, Solutions and Good Practices

(Extracted from Ahabwe Mugerwa Michael's Presentation at the Jane Addams Hull house Museum- University of Illinois Chicago on October 11, 2011)

Introduction:

Achieving food security continues to be a challenge not only for the developing nations, but also for the developed world. The difference lies n the magnitude of the problem in terms of its severity and proportion of the population affected. Food security has major three aspects: food availability, food access and food adequacy.

Food security is a situation in which all people at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active healthy life. Food security is affected by a complexity of factors; these include, unstable social and political environments that preclude sustainable economic growth, war and civil strife, macroeconomic imbalances in trade, natural resource constraints, poor human resource base, gender inequality, inadequate education, poor health, natural disasters such as floods and locust infestations and the absence of good governance. All these factors contribute to either insufficient national food security availability or insufficient access to food by households and individuals.

While the rest of the world has made significant progress towards food security and poverty alleviation, Sub Saharan Africa, Uganda in particular continues to lag behind. Many factors have contributed to this including the high prevalence of HIV/AIDS, civil war, strive and poor governance, frequent drought and famine, and agricultural dependency on the climate and environment. ( Uganda is currently experiencing famine and food shortages in Eastern and Northern Uganda and Its estimated that the country looses approximately $245,666,666 due to malnutrition. Source; Uganda national Academy of Science report). Despite the reoccurring famine cases in the country, government has not taken major policy changes that target all people in the agriculture sector.

Challenges to food security in rural Uganda.

1. Underdeveloped Agricultural Sector.

Over reliance on primary agriculture, environmental degradation, significant food crop loss due to post -harvest and minimal value addition are some of the major challenges to agriculture in Africa. Over 99% of the food in Uganda is grown under rain-fed agriculture, which makes food production vulnerable to adverse weather conditions.

2. Barriers to market Access

Access to markets is another huddle that smallholder farmers face. There is poor infrastructure and barriers in penetrating the market caused by limited resources, lack of information, lack of or inadequate support institutions and poor policies among others.

3. Disease and Infection.

Disease and infections continue to plague entire African continent. Disease like malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS not only reduce the man-hours available to agriculture and household food acquisition, but also increase the burden of households in acquiring food. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations ( FAO), estimates that by 2020 the epidemic will claim the lives of 20% or more of the population working in agriculture in many Southern African Countries . NB: Agriculture contributes to 79.6% of the total labor force in Uganda.

How food security can be achieved.

1. Nutritional interventions for the poor to reduce effects of malnutrition’s on the poor and sick. NB: food production makes nutritious food available.

2. Facilitating market access: there is need to remove the barriers to trade for African economies so that the people can benefit.

3. Rural off-farm opportunities. These can include industries engaging in value addition, providing credit, market facilitation. These will increase opportunities for the poor when they are no their farmers and reduce rural-urban migration making farm labor available. NB: Uganda’s agriculture addition growth is estimated at only 5.11% and farm tractor use at 0.7%

4. Capacity building: free access to education, research and development, access to capital and infrastructure so that communities can be empowered to produce enough food.

5. Gender sensitive development. Policy makers should work to address gender issues in agriculture and build women’s capacity to make decisions that affect them. E.g Women contribute approximately 80% of agriculture labor force and control less than 10% of resources at household level. According to a 2000 International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) study, agriculture is the main source of income for rural households in Uganda. It is also the main occupation of women. Nationwide, 72% of all employed women and 90% of all rural women work in agriculture.

6. Demonstration sites / technology development site. These offer onsite training to farmers, are avenues for research and provide an opportunity for a farmers-learn by doing approach which is very important in empowering rural farming communities.

7. Good governance. All strategies work in a secure and corruption free environment. Governments should delink political interests to the needs of the people like access to adequate and nutritious food.

ICOD Action Network and Project Focus’s approach to build a sustainable community food systems.

1. Permaculture training. This project trains rural farmers to consciously design and maintain agriculture productive ecosystems. The project integrates environment and people, energy, shelter and other material and non material farmer needs in a sustainable way. 137 farmers have been so far been trained in permaculture.

2. Increasing farmer’s access to agricultural information. We opened a solar powered information center, which is being used to implement an information-sharing project through information technology. Under this project, 5 community groups are taking part information sharing project. Trained farmers engage communities in discussion about key agricultural issues and them look for information from the Internet which they post in their respective communities so that they can be accessed by all community members. Information about agriculture, good farming methods, weather, markets, pests and disease is now easily shared among communities.

3. Training. This is a key component in all our agriculture and food security projects.

You're Invited

Ahabwe Michael, founder of ICOD Action Network, our local partner in Lyantonde, Uganda, will be visiting us here in Chicago!

While here, Michael will be an honored guest speaker at the Jane Addams Hull House food activism series, Re-Thinking Soup. His presentation will include thoughts on how rural African communities can be a leading source of the world’s health food supplies if respective governments make technical and policy adjustments. He will also discuss the importance of access to healthy and sustainable foods in rural communities, as well as ICOD Action Network's use of the Lyantonde Internet Center to promote agriculture information and training within the Lyantonde community.

Please join us for this thought-provoking presentation and a delicious bowl of soup!

Tuesday, October 11, 2011@ 12:00-1:00pm
Jane Addams Hull-House Museum
The University of Illinois at Chicago
800 S. Halsted Chicago, IL 60607

Also, Ahabwe Michael has been invited to speak on Worldview with Jerome McDonnell to discuss the continued progress and challenges with the Lyantonde Internet Center. Stay tuned for the date and time of the WBEZ broadcast!

(From Project Focus Blog, september 30, 2011)

Ugandan Lawmakers okay controversial HIV/AIDS Bill

In our May 3, 2011 article, we analyzed the impact of the proposed HIV /AIADS Prevention and Control Bill that was before Uganda’s eighth Parliament for debate and passing. We added our voice to a number of international and local NGOs, activists, donors and Uganda’s partners calling for the revision of the entire bill and removal of clauses that criminalize HIV/AIDS spread.

On July 12, 2011 Ugandan law makers resisted pressure and backed the bill despite its consequences of rights of people living with HIV /AIDS and HIV/AIDS prevention and awareness campaigns that have seen the country make tremendous steps towards the.

The 9^th Parliament new committee chairperson, Ms Rosemary Najjemba Muyinda was recently reported saying that the bill was in its advanced stages of being passed.

There are several controversial clauses of the bill like a 10 year penalty in jail to individuals that knowingly infect others, criminal prosecution of women who transmit HIV to their infants after birth through breast milk among others.

Lets think about this: Two people: A ( male) and B (female) both have never had HIV test but have unprotected sex. A becomes suspicious and worried and decides to rush to the nearest HIV testing center after 120 days and tests for HIV. Results show that he is HIV positive. He attacks B and drags her to court for infecting him with the deadly HIV/AIDS virus intentionally. Remember B had never had an HIV test before and didn’t know her status before she had unprotected sex with A. How will court determine who infected the other? Are Uganda’s law makers making ignorance of one’s HIV status a crime or making HIV test mandatory?

ICOD Action Network strongly opposes the entire bill because of its consequences on human rights, the bill undermines progress so far made in fighting HIV/AIDS, it legislates for mandatory testing for HIV and forced disclosure of HIV status among other clauses that we think will affect government and civil society efforts to reduce HIV prevalence and new infections rates.

2011 Half year (January - June) Key Projects Report

Hello partners, donors and friends, we are glad to share with you our 2011 half year report about our key projects / activities. Thanks for your support.

Key Projects / activities

February 2011: House and pit latrine construction Project. The project whose goal is to provide sustainable and appropriate shelter solutions to HIV/AIDS affected households was completed in Kinuuka Sub County. A total of 6 houses and 6 improved pit latrines were constructed in Lyantonde Rural and Kinuuka Sub Counties.

March 2011: Permaculture Training

Permaculture (the word, coined by Bill Mollison, is a portmanteau of permanent agriculture and permanent culture) is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people — providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way. Without permanent agriculture there is no possibility of a stable social order. The organization recently adopted the approach in all its agriculture related projects. In March 2011 one of our staff attended the Permaculture Design Course in Kenya and we hosted True Nature Design from USA that facilitated permaculture trainings in Kyewanula and Lwensinga Villages Lyantonde Rural Sub County. A total 137 participants attended the 2 days training.

March 2011: Women’s Group savings and credit project: This is a new project we are piloting with two women’s groups Wabusana Parish Kinuuka Sub County. The project goal is to increase group savings and reduce vulnerability of women and children.

April 2011: Anti corruption. This new project aims advocating for a corruption free community through community awareness. We have started identifying community volunteers from the already existing volunteer base. This project targets local leaders and community’s members. Community members shall be trained in detecting, reporting and following corruption related cases and shall also be equipped with skills in monitoring community development projects implemented in their areas. Projects that are implemented by government and local governments like districts are always characterized by corruption in the award of contracts, procurement and implementation of such projects. When communities are trained in detecting and reporting corruption, a lot shall be achieved in reducing corruption and its undesired effects in the community.

May 2011: HIV/AIDS

HIV/AIDS programming aims at reducing rates of HIV/AIDS prevalence, infection and effects of opportunistic infections among the victims. The organization recently started partnering with Lyantonde Network of People Living with Aids. Both organizations have adopted a Joint HIV and AIDS Action Plan for 2011 which will lead to HIV/AIDS projects being implemented in amore effective and sustainable manner.

ICT training for farmers (Ongoing)

Selected farmer's group members (Community Information Agents) are being trained in computer and Internet use, and collect information that the community group has requested from the Internet. Information related to agriculture, markets, crop diseases , HIV/AIDS and modern farming methods is retrieved from the internet, repackaged in local languages and shared with respective communities. Community Information Agents have been very instrumental in mobilizing communities for change.

Key Partners

Project Focus - Chicago

Program for Accessible Health, Communication and Health (PACE)

Rakai Community Aids Organization (RACOBAO)

Lyantonde Hospital

Lyantonde Moslem Supreme Council Hospital

Lyantonde Network of People Living with HIV and AIDS

Kampala University

University Bible Fellowship Uganda

Lyantonde District Local Government

Lyantonde District NGO Forum

Plans for July - December 2011

We hope to implement the following projects/ activities during the last half of the year (July – December).

- Conduct HIV/AIDS awareness campaigns

- Build capacity of Network of People Living with HIV and AIDS so that they can be able implement HIV/AIDS projects.

- Construct ferro-cement tanks in selected sub counties of Lyantonde district

- Strengthen Community Information sharing systems through access to ICT.

- Carry out 6 community permaculture trainings.

- Take part in Lyantonde NGO Forum activities.