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All the latest news and stories from Maranatha Health
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The last of the autumn leaves are falling and a very cold Australian winter is well and truly upon us. We hope this email finds you staying warm; keeping Influenza and COVID at bay!

In MH news, Dr Ian Daly has arrived in Uganda from Ireland, to spend four months working at the Maranatha Health Hospital. Ian is a welcome and valuable addition to our team, and brings considerable expertise.

Our team in Uganda is active and busy as usual - empowering communities with health education; counselling and treating patients with long-term, complex conditions; and saving lives in the hospital. This quarter alone, around 4000
 patients have been cared for in the MH clinic. In this issue, you'll find the stories of Lutalo* and Otem*, two of MH's young patients.

With joy, we celebrate the marriage of Winnie and 
Samson Odong, our Finance Manager in Uganda. Samson shares his story with us in this Update. Also in this edition, we introduce you to ChiChi Gaoo from the UK, who tells of her time in Uganda and her long-term work with Maranatha Health through Accountants for International Development (AfID).

We'd welcome you sharing this Update with others who might also be interested in our work.

In this update: 

Above:  Healthy Living! 
Nyakabungo Community's productive, nutritious, income-generating Kitchen Garden.


 

Thank you!


Your generous support of Maranatha Health helps us meet the challenges of our work in Uganda. You enable us to continue responding to community needs and providing the high quality healthcare all children deserve.

Our global family of supporters makes these projects possible and we are enormously grateful for your ongoing commitment to our work.

 
If you haven't yet had a chance to see the recent impact of your support, please click on this link to read our MH Year In Review 2021.
To contribute to our
EOFY Appeal, please click the orange button below.
Give Now

Lutalo's Story

‘‘I nearly lost my child to poor hygiene and sanitation.
Thanks Maranatha."

Lutalo* and his mother, Sanyu*, live on the outskirts of Fort Portal. One morning, 10-month-old Lutalo was brought to Maranatha's clinic; he had sunken eyes and severe weight loss. Dehydrated by four days with Diarrhoea, he'd had a convulsion and was unconscious.

‘‘At Maranatha, Health workers attended to my son very fast before asking me to pay any money, and within few hours my son was conscious! He was given enough fluids and medicine that helped him.’’ 

Lutalo regained his strength and with Sanyu, 22, prepared to return to their village.  On the day of Lutalo's discharge, Sanyu shared this with us:

‘‘One day while still admitted, they gave us a teaching about Diarrhoea, that’s when I learned about the cause of my child’s sickness. From this teaching I realised that I had not been practicing proper hygiene at home. We didn’t drink boiled water, ...we ate unwashed fruits with unwashed hands and we rarely covered left-over food thinking that it will go bad if we cover it.”

Lutalo and Sanyu's story reminds us of the immediate impact MH continues to have on children, their families and communities.

It also illustrates the enormous potential of our Village Health Advisor program and the ongoing positive impact it has on families around Kabarole District. With further strategic and empowering investment in community education and health literacy, life-giving changes are possible. Thank you to everyone who has already invested in this program - your gifts are making a difference!

*Names changed to protect patients' privacy.

Meet CHICHI GAOO
from AfID

 

In her own words...

My name is ‘Akiki’ , a "Pet" name given by my wonderful colleagues at Maranatha Health Uganda since my first day at work. Here in Fort Portal, everyone in the community has a "Pet" name. I wear "77" because it has the same pronunciation as my Chinese nickname, ‘ChiChi’; which also rhymes perfectly with ‘Akiki’! From Asia, Europe and Africa, I am blessed with a unified name across the culture and continents, that shapes my own identify as global citizen living in this giant global village.

In early 2020 in the middle of pandemic lockdowns, I connected with a children's hospital on the other side of the world as their volunteer financial advisor. After countless messages and virtual meetings, two years later I found myself in this beautiful city working with them in person. I'm so thankful to be part of the MH family, to harvest some amazing friendships, to be able to work together and learn from them. 

During my tenure with MH, I have done a series of targeted end-to-end financial business process reviews to help me understand the operation of the hospital on the ground; as well as the areas for improvement from internal control standpoint. The review covers the patient 'lifecycle'; which includes billing, cash management, procurement, and community programs. I have also looked into the current financial and accounting practices and introduced the local management team to some best practices, leveraging my decade-plus years’ experience working in this field.

In two weeks onsite in Uganda, I gained in-depth understanding of things I'd previously only heard about, or gleaned from financial statements. I helped establish a monthly financial performance reporting package with budget forecast, to enable planning and effective monitoring of financial results; and a comprehensive budgeting framework.
I participated in daily staff meetings, starting the day with prayer, and in management meetings to get fully up to speed. To gain in-depth understanding of local operation, I undertook various accounting tasks; like validating payments and making trips to deposit funds into the bank. 

Spending time with the MH Community Team, I got an idea of the impact Maranatha is having on local communities. I observed from the initial mobilization meeting in the village, to training health champions who pass new knowledge to their neighbours; household inspections to validate improvement in living conditions, and the final graduation of the community when it successfully completed the year-long health program, making noticeable improvements in the village. It’s somewhat shocking to see the living conditions of the locals and how simple improvements such as drinking boiled water could save thousands of lives.

Overall, the onsite experience has been so valuable to help me truly understand the context and situation in which the hospital is operating. From my experience on the ground, the numbers on the financials suddenly started making sense. Now in retrospect, when I recall some questions I asked during my first days with Maranatha, I cannot help feeling a bit naïve.

Besides working, I also crashed Doctor Kevin’s wedding in Kampala on a day trip with hospital management, and I visited Maranatha's new site. Hopefully, someday I will make it back and see a brand new hospital, built over the matoke field and continuing its legacy.



ChiChi has been helping MH through AfID - Accountants for International Development - and we are enormously grateful for all she does. Thank you "Akiki"!
 
Photos above provided by ChiChi:
"Akiki" # 77,  ChiChi and the MH team,
village graduation ceremony,
improved conditions,  future hospital site.

From our Team in Uganda: Meet Samson!

Congratulations to Samson, and his beautiful bride Winnie!

In his own words...


"A DREAM COME TRUE"

My name is Odong Samson Onyait, I joined Maranatha on 1st November 2020 as the Finance and Human Resource Manager. I am a certified Public Accountant registered with the Institute of Certified Public Accountants in Uganda. I manage day to day finance and accounting processes of Maranatha Uganda as well as coordinate with other members like the Finance Volunteer in the UK to ensure timely and accurate accounting and reporting of Uganda project works to ensure an efficient and error free implementation process. Prior I worked with a manufacturing company  in Jinja as an Accountant.

I have enjoyed working in Maranatha for the last two years because of the strong support system from fellow staff, and the Directors who have done a tremendous job in ensuring that we continued serving humanity even during the difficult COVID period. It a joy to see very poor patients accessing decent health care services from Maranatha. During my marriage, Maranatha stood and walked with us in every step of our marriage. I must say Winnie (my wife) and I are forever grateful to the Maranatha family. 

My beau
tiful wife is a Hospitality Administrator at Sidra Hospital. I love her for her steady nature, and I love the warm feeling each time I look into her eyes.

Four years of courtship and now, just three weeks in marriage, I would have to admit that it’s the best feeling ever! The reasons for loving Winnie three years ago when we had just met shortly after campus, have surpassed my expectations. She has been the most superb, supportive and devoted woman anyone could ever ask for. And true to it when she said yes to my proposal, without hesitation I visited her family. It’s been a great path of faith, trust and commitment. It took a lot of courage to say yes to me. Knowing that we are spending a life time together is in itself scary.

That is life, and love. When one is surrounded by love, the feeling of excitement, and fear fades away, and one tends to ignore the true love that lies in between the peace and dullness.

Love shows up in all forms, even very small and cheeky forms, it has never been a model, it could be the dullest, boring or even most fearful thing…. flowers, and romantic moments are only used and appear on the surface of the relationship. Under all this, the pillar of true love stands, and that has been our life for the last four years. Love, not words, win souls, minds and any fears.


We are very grateful for Samson's hard work, commitment and leadership at Maranatha Health. We wish him and his new wife all the best in their marriage!

Otem and Nagessa

‘‘They did not judge me, they treated my child and taught me what to do.’’

Nagessa* "was so worried" when her son, one-year-old Otem*, became seriously ill.

Otem had diarrhoea, and Nagessa had given him local herbs to cure it. After two more days "the rate of breathing also changed". Believing his breathing problems were a sign of Oburo, a traditional disease often treated locally; Nagessa was advised to "take him for tradition healing", done by making cuttings in the chest. When none of this worked, a desperate Nagessa took Otem from their remote  village to the MH clinic in Fort Portal.

By then, Otem had developed pneumonia. He was admitted and given oxygen. During his stay, Nagessa participated in an education session discussing traditional diseases, taught by MH staff on the ward.

“All this time I have always believed in traditional diseases and I thought they can’t be treated from the hospital not until I almost lost my child, I have now known that these diseases do not exist and I will always seek medical treatment as soon as possible. I am happy Maranatha staff didn’t judge/blame me on what I did to the child instead they have taught me and opened my eyes on different diseases; now I know what to do.”

Happily, after four days in Maranatha's care, Otem was well enough to return home. And Nagessa returned to her community with a wealth of new knowledge to share!

*Names changed to protect patients' privacy.

 

MaranathaPARTNERS

We know that there are no quick-solutions to poverty or broken health systems.
We are committed to our communities for the long-haul,
to see children thriving and able to access life-saving care.

To do this, we need your help.

MaranathaPARTNERS are monthly givers, and they are crucial 
for ensuring the long term sustainability of our work in Uganda.

 


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Maranatha Health partners with Global Development Group (ABN 57 102 400 993) an
Australian NGO approved by the Minister for Foreign Affairs for Project J704N.

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Our mailing address is:
2a Bretwalder Ave, Leabrook
South Australia 5068
ABN: 15 928 552 503

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www.maranathahealth.org

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