Husna Nassali was born in July 2015 in Ddagye village on Bugala, the largest of the 84 Ssese Islands. If she had watched any adverts about the islands before she came, she would have been eager to be a part of the idyllic scenes of blue water and endless white beaches. The reality was a little different.
There are many challenges that confront any normal baby in Ssese islands – widespread poverty, very few ill-equipped and understaffed health facilities, low literacy levels and high school dropout rates, limited public transport, and poor sanitation and hygiene among others. Husna was not a normal baby. She was born pre-term and by the age of nine months, could neither sit, stand nor walk. She only managed to crawl on her belly. Life was going to be very tough for her and her family.
1991 saw an earlier birth connected to Ssese. This time it was that of the Rotary Club of Kampala Ssese Islands. Most of the charter members traced their roots to the Islands and set out to help address some of the development challenges there.
The Club’s initial interventions were mainly through dental and medical camps and provision of scholastic materials and a community library. In 2014, the club refocused its attention and, today, it implements a holistic community development initiative that seeks to address capacity gaps in the areas of health, education, water and sanitation, conflict resolution, and economic and community development – the six areas of focus of Rotary.
In the area of health, the Club in partnership with the local community led by the Wamala Family, has built and equipped a Health Centre II facility at Ddagye. The facility has an Out Patient Department, a laboratory, a maternity wing and living quarters for staff. It has also been fitted with a 10,000lt. rain water harvesting system, solar power and laboratory equipment for bilharzia treatment – the first of its kind in Uganda. Today, the health centre attends to an average of 500 patients per month; has carried out 54 baby deliveries in the last two years; and has tested and treated over 500 clients for bilharzia disease since September 2019.
In July of 2016 Husna, then one year old, was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Doctors at the Comprehensive Rehabilitation Services in Uganda (CoRSU) Hospital in Entebbe prescribed a two-year rehabilitation program, with review and therapy sessions every two months. However, Husna’s mother, Sheila could not afford it and never returned!
Three years later Husna’s grandmother, Margaret, was at a medical outreach at the Ddagye Health Centre and met with Rotarian Irene Nabayunga, a member of the Wamala family, and recounted Husna’s story. Irene and Daniella Akellot, another member of the Club who works at the CORSU Hospital, led other members to meet her rehabilitation expenses. Husna’s rehabilitation programme resumed with regular trips from the Islands to the Hospital in Entebbe.
Soon Husna could, with the help of a wheelchair from the Club, move independently. She gradually progressed and took her very fist steps ever with a walker the club had made available. She is not only mobile but is now enrolled, along with another 100 children, at the Ddagye Early Childhood School. The school was built through another partnership between the district, the local community, the Club and its partners.
Her future looks even brighter. The school will soon have solar lighting and staff quarters, which will mean teachers will always be available. Already, two district wide club literacy projects (providing text books and teaching aids to 23 primary schools in the district in addition to training teachers through a Rotary Foundation grant) have resulted in a steep change in the performance of students at primary and ordinary level examinations. A second phase of the grant worth US$ was recently approved by the Rotary Foundation to provide non-scholastic materials and improve water, sanitation and hygiene in the 23 primary schools .
The Club also recently refurbished and equipped Kalangala HC IV theatre as well as training 60 health workers and 210 Village Health Teams (VHTs) through a Rotary Foundation grant. The VHTs will be equipped with bicycles to ease healthcare service delivery at household level. The club’s long-term plan is to secure a hospital ship for the islands.
Rotary Club of Kampala Ssese has also organised several agribusiness talks, shared crop and animal production knowledge and skills as well as planted and distributed over 10,000 fruit, fence and shed trees as a way of enhancing community and economic development in the area.
“As a family, we are very grateful to the Rotary Club of Kampala Ssese Islands for standing in the gap for Husna, and for affording her the opportunity to move and play and to be able to enjoy her childhood and, more importantly, to be able to go to school,” says Margaret Tumwebaze, Husna’s grandmother.
The idea of Husna being a part of those images of serene beauty doesn’t seem alien after all…
Things are falling in place for her and for Ssese Islands after all. All thanks to connections through Rotary...
