PROJECT PROPOSAL PROJECT NAME: TUSIMBUDDE RWAMWANJA PHASE TWO FOCUSING ON: DISEASE PREVENTION AND TREATMENT, MATERNAL AND CHILD HEALTH, WATER AND SANITATION, ECONOMIC AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT,PEACE AND CONFLICT RESOLUTION AND SUPPORTING THE ENVIRONMENT TO BE EXECUTED IN RWAMWANJA REFUGEE CAMP, KAMWENGE DISTRICT BY ROTARACT CLUB OF BWEBAJJA ROTARACT CLUB OF NKUMBA STEWARDS ROTARACT CLUB OF ENTEBBE AIRPORT
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1.0.
Introduction
Rwamwanja settlement is a refugee camp that was established in 1964 to host refugees from Rwanda and closed in 1995 when many repatriated after the 1994 Genocide. With the recent unrest and violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the settlement was reopened in 2012 to host refugees fleeing from North and South Kivu of DRC and since then the settlement has received close to 70,000 refugees. Refugees are people who are forced to leave their home countries because of war, ethnic violence, or other form of persecution. The plight of these refugees is a global crisis given the soaring numbers every year arising from the violence around the World. Refugees face many difficult challenges when they leave their homes, family and friends, jobs, and most of the things they own. Every aspect of their lives is negatively altered and they have to struggle with the hard new life offered to them in the refugee camps. Among the many challenges is the access to sufficient food supply, high risk of disease as a result of the poor sanitation around the settlement, inadequate health facilities, abject poverty justified by the inability to sustainably earn through trade or employment and harsh hostility from the host community. The lives of the people in the refugee camps utterly rely on aid groups to provide them with their daily needs including but not limited to health services, education, and food for their entire stay, which could be many months or even years before they are able to return to their homes. Unfortunately, due to the outbreak of the covid19 pandemic in 2020, most the donor organisations are financially incapacitated and thus unable to make timely relief donations to the refugees. This forms the backbone against which Tusimbudde Rwamwanja Phase 2 project has been thought and duly enlightens the need for an urgent intervention in the settlement. Tusimbudde Rwamwanja Phase 2 project is humanitarian response to the health, water and sanitation emergencies in Rwamwanja settlement by the Rotaract Clubs along Entebbe road in Uganda. This project phase is a follow up initiative in the Rwamwanja community with a wider scope to consolidate on the impact achieved by the first phase executed in 2020 whose major emphasis was proper menstrual hygiene management.
2.0.
Implementing Organizations’ overview
This primary implementing organisations are; Rotaract Club of Nkumba Stewards, Rotaract Club of Bwebajja and Rotaract Club of Entebbe Airport. These Rotaract Clubs are voluntary organisations with an average membership of 30 youths each, that have devoted their personal resources in form of time, skills and finances towards the execution of various community service projects in various parts of Uganda. The Clubs work closely with their sponsor Rotary Clubs which offer support in form of guidance, materials, finances, skills that are suitably allocated towards the good of the beneficiary community. These Clubs are guided by the principles of service, transparency, accountability, high ethical values, respect of the rights of others and 2
the dignifying of all useful occupations. The Club members meet weekly to exchange ideas, take action and present accountability to all stakeholders.
3.0.
Project justification
The project team in liaison with the local community leadership at Rwamwanja settlement performed a multi sector needs assessment to ascertain the most pertinent needs of Rwamwanja refugee settlement. The rationale of the needs’ assessment was to align the Project activities with the community needs subsequently optimizing the impact of the project. Below were the findings categorized in sectors: 3.1.General health sector: The health sector of the Rwamwanja refugee settlement leaves a lot to be desired despite the many interventions by a number of implementing partners. The community is mostly affected by malaria, respiratory tract infections, malnutrition especially in children, watery diarrhea and other hygiene related diseases. There are also currently high instances of anemia within the settlement, with 48.8% of women found to be anemic. Despite this, there is one health center III at Rwamwanja refugee camp as well as a newly constructed health center II in Kyempango manned by a 49 technical health staff on the ground translating in to 1:100 clinician to patient ratio every day. The settlement health facilities are overly under stocked with drugs and other medical supplies relevant to sustain a functional health system. In this scenario, the settlers are left with the option of procuring the required drugs yet many find the cost of these drugs high and can hardly afford them. As a matter of fact, a study conducted by UNCHR in August 2018 at Rwamwanja settlement ascertained that more than 51% of the households at the settlement reported cost of medicine as a hindrance to accessing quality medical services. Also, the available health facilities do not receive adequate supply of specialized drugs for treating medical conditions like diabetes, neuropathy, diabetes melittus, hypertension, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), eye sight, stroke and angina, depression, Arthritis commonly found in the elderly people. This means that such cases are categorized as specialized emergencies and have to be transferred to Fort Portal hospital that is located 90km away, often realizing fatalities while still in transit. Additionally, the hygiene situation at the Rwamwanja settlement is in a dire state, with a huge deficit of toilets forcing many dwellers to defecate in polythene bags which are later dumped around the community posing imminent health risks. The community also lacks sufficient garbage sites that can facilitate a safe disposal of harmful waste and this is one of the justifications for the prevalent hygiene related diseases and the gastro intestinal infections. 3.2.Wash - Menstrual Hygiene Management: Globally, refugee girls and young women often lack the ability to manage their menstruation safely and with dignity due to a lack of adequate facilities, products and knowledge. This is not any different at Rwamwanja settlement where menstruation is a taboo characterized with stigma and cannot be discussed publicly.
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Results from the baseline study indicated that school girls and young women at Rwamwanja refugee settlement lacked access to the menstrual hygiene knowledge and products required for them to manage their menstruation in a healthy and dignified manner. Although UNHCR mandates that all women and girls of reproductive age are to receive distributions of disposable sanitary pads, soap and underwear, 71% of the girls reported not having enough menstrual products, 65% reported not having enough soap and 59% reported not having enough underwear. 44% percent also reported that they did not have enough information about menstrual hygiene. Many of the girls and young women, rely on donations from partner organisations which donations are often insufficient and not time bound. As a matter of fact, 20% of the girls admitted to reusing the disposable sanitary pads because they were not able to receive a donation in time, posing imminent health issues resulting from improper hygiene. Additionally, access to water in Rwamwanja community that currently stands at 15 litres per person is still below the UN standard of 20 litres per person. Due to the very few water points, many girls and women have to walk long distances and make long queues to collect water for household use making the all process tedious. As a strategy to save the available water, many girls opt for using less water for bathing and washing which poses additional challenges ultimately affecting the hygiene of the young women and school girls especially while in their menstruation periods. 3.3.Community Economic Empowerment: The needs assessment report ascertained that over 78% of the dwellers in Rwamwanja settlement rely on Agriculture for food and daily livelihood. However, 57% of the households that access agricultural land reported that the food produced was not sufficient for their families and thus relied on food donations as a supplement. Rwamwanja settlement has a handful of livelihood groups that provide access to high yielding varieties of common food crops, support crop post-harvest handling and informal vocational skills development including tailoring, hairdressing, baking, craft making and soap making for group-based income generation. Community savings & credit structures (Village Savings and Loan Associations) are also promoted to increase refugees’ access to cheap credit. However, the impact of these skilling groups and credit facilities is almost non-existent given the high influx of refugees in Rwamwanja settlement that lack skill to engage themselves in the money economy. Additionally, many of the refugees have not been equipped with basic financial literacy skills to appropriately manage the credit facilities extended to them and many end up wasting the credit resources thus creating a vicious cycle of poverty. The community still owns a mono directional thought that men are the only ones mandated to fend for their families and the women to perform the house chores. This explains the low household incomes and has persistently kept the Rwamwanja community in poverty. 3.4.Child and Maternal Health Due to over reliance on one health facility, the resources for maternal health are overly strained and the patient to health provider ratio is way too high. The maternity wing at the Rwamwanja Health centre has limited space with only 12 beds for post-delivery care. Subsequently, the patients have to share beds with at
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least two people and their new born babies. The health centers offer integrated maternal health services in one place that is, pre-natal care, antenatal and post-natal care which also encompasses provision of family planning methods. This has deterred many young women from accessing reproductive health services simply because they lack privacy to personally interact with the health service provider to elucidate the pros and cons associated with the different family planning methods. That notwithstanding, the health facility has done a lot of awareness on the benefits of family planning which has generated a lot of demand. The downside however is that there is inconsistent supply of family planning commodities which has led to missed opportunities to prevent unintended pregnancies and unsafe abortions. The increasing number of child mothers and teenage pregnancies has also posed an additional challenge that the health facility is struggling with given the associated health complications. The maternity ward caters for not only deliveries but also offers post abortion care to the unsafe abortion patients who are mostly teenagers.
3.5.Gender Based Violence Due to the lack of economic opportunities, many women and men are engaging in polygamy, land conflict, alcoholism and drug abuse which often results in to gender-based and domestic violence. Many girls are forced to fetch water and firewood from distant places in the wee hours of the day, prompting sexual abuse in form of defilement and sexual assault. To make matters worse, the victims of defilement are often forced by their families to marry the perpetrators resulting in to multiple sexual offences while in marriage and trauma often leading to depression and suicide. Domestic violence is seen as a norm in the community mostly affecting women and girls. Some of the cases are reported to the authorities but the main challenge is that women often retract their statements forcing the police to release some perpetrators with the police constantly dealing with repeat offenders. The release is usually demanded during the period cash transfer or food distribution by donor organisations so that the men who are registered can access them on behalf of their families. 3.6.Environmental conservation There has been reported increase of cover loss in Rwamwanja settlement and this has been justified by the influx of refugees in the settlement. The influx has exerted pressure on the forest cover leading to deforestation to gain access to cultivatable land and to construct households. Also, since 90% of the Rwamwanja population depends on firewood and charcoal as the main sources of energy for cooking, cutting down trees is a common practice within the settlement and this is cited as the biggest reason behind the escalating deforestation in the settlement. Since the settlement borders a game reserve, reports of poaching of wildlife and birds for food especially by the Congolese refugees were made and this poses a threat to the environment and also injures the tourism sector. The dire hygiene sanitation around the settlement characterized by human and animal waste, which
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eventually are carried in to Katonga river and drained in to Lake Victoria posing an imminent health disaster to the community that survives on water body. 4.0.Project location The Projects shall be executed at Rwamwanja Settlement that is located within Nkoma and Bwizi SubCounties of Kamwenge district, about 45kms from Kyenjojo town along Kyenjojo – Kamwenge road. The settlement is home to close to 70,000 refugees from Democratic Republic of Congo that made their way to Uganda due to the conflict in their Country. The settlement is also home to a significant number of Ugandan settlers. 5.0.Project goals. The project is intended to register impact in the sectors of health, menstrual hygiene management, gender-based violence Maternal and Child Health, Social and Community Development, Peace and Conflict Resolution and environment conservation. Below are the intended goals of the Project:
Empower women groups with financial literacy skills that would foster investment in profitable ventures thus curbing on prostitution that is responsible for the high HIV/ AIDS prevalence rate. This will also improve on the household income thus improving on the standard of living in the community.
Improve on the health services at Rwamwanja settlement by organizing and holding regular medical outreaches that will ease on the accessibility of quality health services in the area and offer the specialized medical services that the community is in dire need of.
Reduce on the number of school girls that drop out of school due to improper menstrual hygiene management.
Equip the school girls with Menstrual Hygiene Management skills that will enable them produce their own reusable sanitary towels so that they can properly take care of their menstruation period. Producing the sanitary towels will also empower them financially as they will sell the surplus sanitary towels.
Reduce on the number of maternal related deaths by availing the necessary materials like mama kits that are needed to have clean and safe deliveries through the regular medical camps.
Reduce on the number of deaths of children and mothers that are attributed to malaria by providing insecticide treated mosquito nets through the various medical outreaches.
Reduce on the cases of malnutrition in children by planting fruit trees in a number of households in the community.
Sensitize the community about the benefits of family planning thus help them produce children they can take good care of.
Reduce on the number of women that succumb to death due to excessive blood loss during child birth by conducting regular blood donor recruitment exercises. 6
6.0.Project beneficiaries The Project targets to benefit 300 households, each with an average membership of 6 people. In summation, the total number of beneficiaries is 1,800 people residing within Rwamwanja settlement. Among the beneficiaries, 60% are women and girls and 40% will be their male counterparts. The table below illustrates the simple demographics of the project beneficiaries. Direct beneficiaries Children ≤ 18 years Adults ≥ 19 years TOTAL
Female 756 324 1080
Statistics Male 504 216 720
Total 1,260 540 1,800
7.0.Implementation plan The project implementation strategy shall follow a precise approach. This is a five year project. The first phase was carried out in September 2020.Following the successive implementation of Phase 1, the second phase shall be conducted in July 2021. A different set of activities and goals shall be arranged for the forthcoming year that shall address the pending community needs depending on the apparent order of priority. Project activities. The activities of this project are crafted in line with the needs of the community and shall be executed in a way that will optimize impact of the project to the beneficiary community. The planned interventions have been specifically categorized in the sectors as illustrated below. 7.1.General Health
The Project is to construct two (2) Bio digester toilets at the settlement to serve the general population.. Bio digester toilets work in a such a way that they decompose the human excreta with the aid of macro-organism producing fertilizer and bio gas. The products of the bio digester toilet, that is bio gas can act as an alternative source of energy for cooking and lighting consequently relieving the environment from deforestation. Since bio digester toilet does not fill up, it’s the absolute solution to the latrine issue that often get filled up but continue to be used by the community making the people susceptible to diseases.
Donation of 20 water points that shall be strategically installed in front of toilets in the community of Rwamwanja settlement and in schools at the settlement.
Organize and execute a medical camp that offers a number of specialized medical services. Among the services, the medical outreaches will offer laboratory investigations for STDs, UTIs, malaria, 7
typhoid, diabetes and bilharzia. Other services will include among others safe male circumcision, dental and eye clinic, blood donation services, general clinic for the common illnesses like colds and upper tract infection diseases etc.
Work in liaison with the National Blood Bank to hold a blood recruitment exercise that shall facilitate an increase in the blood supply in the hospitals around Rwamwanja settlement consequently narrowing the National blood deficit. 7.2.Water and sanitation
Installation of a water purification systems to avail safe drinking water to the children at the Primary schools in Rwamwanja settlement.
Donate 5,000 reusable sanitary towels to the school going girls and the young women as a sustainable initiative to honourably manage their menstruation periods and retain their dignity.
Equip the young women and school going girls with basic knowledge to make their own reusable sanitary towels from basic cloth and threads. This shall also empower them economically as they would save the money, they were using for buying disposable towels and introduce them to the money economy by producing reusable sanitary towels for the market.
Construct 2 incinerators, one (1) at the secondary school and the other within the community to safely dispose of waste that can be harmful to both humans and the environment. Such waste includes polythene bags, plastics, diapers and disposal sanitary towels.
Train the village dwellers on the proper way to wash hands with running water and soap as the simple way to prevent catching up to 99% of disease-causing germs that are responsible for spreading diarrhea and gastro intestinal infections.
Engage the community in a massive cleanup exercise that will appropriately dispose off the waste and make passage for the stagnant water that harbors mosquitoes and other infectious insects. 7.3.Environmental conservation
Train youths on how to make charcoal briquettes from garbage. This shall sustainably keep the community clean and provide an alternative source of energy other than firewood. Subsequently, it will also empower the beneficiaries economically especially when they produce the briquettes for commercial purposes.
Plant fruit trees in the different home steads around the landing site to conserve the environment and avail the nutrition derived from fruits to the people at the landing site especially the children thus curbing on the malnutrition cases.
Engage the public of Rwamwanja settlement on the dire effects of poaching wildlife to the economy. 7.4.Maternal and Child Health
Donate mosquito nets to the expectant mothers to protect them and their unborn babies from contracting malaria which is spread through a bite by an infected female mosquito.
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Donate mama kits to the expectant mothers to ensure a safe and hygienic delivery. Mama kit is an all-in-one pack that contains all the supplies that the mother needs to have a clean and safe delivery.
Carry out vaccination and immunization of all children below the ages of 5 years to energize their bodies to fight against common killer diseases.
Decongest the maternity ward of Rwamwanja Health centre III by donating 30 mattresses that shall be allocated in an appropriate space within the health facility to curtail any possible health risks associated with sharing beds with other mothers. 7.5.Economic empowerment
Equip women in small groups with basic skills in tailoring, soap making, baking of doughnuts, crafting of jewelry from beads.
Train the beneficiaries on the basics of financial literacy, encouraging group savings and investment as a strategy to poverty alleviation and improvement in the household incomes.
8.0.Expected Results
Waste management at the resettlement will improve significantly thus reducing on the number of cases that report hygiene related diseases.
Health standards of the community will rise with the availability of toilets at the Rwamwanja settlement.
Accessibility of safe drinking water at the schools reducing on the spread of diseases like typhoid and bilharzia hence reducing on the levels of absenteeism leading to good performance in school.
Improve on the health standards of the dwellers by providing regular medical services at no cost. This will keep the people energetic allowing them enough time to attend to their various activities that earn them a living hence improving on their standards of living.
Availability of fruits in the area that will be consumed by the children at low or no cost thus curbing on the number of malnutrition cases and stunted growth in the children.
Steady rise in the household incomes as the dwellers will have developed a savings culture that will be supplemented by investments hence improving on the employment levels in the community and the peoples’ livelihood and welfare.
Low or no family violence as the population in the area would have been sensitized about the benefits of family planning and the various methods and encouraged only to produce children that they can sustain at a time.
9.0.Project budget estimates S#
Item General Health 1 Bio toilets 2 Medical camp
Qty 2
Unit Px 20,000,00 0
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Amount (Ugx)
Amount (USD)
40,000,000
10,811
10,000,000
2,703
3 Water points 4 Blood donation Sub-Total 1 Water and Sanitation 5 Water purification systems 6 Reusable sanitary towels 7 Incinerators 8 Community Clean up gear 9 Hand wash Sub-Total 2 Environmental conservation 10 Charcoal briquettes training 11 Fruit trees Sub-Total 3 Maternal and child health 12 Mama kits 13 Mosquito nets 14 Mattresses Sub-Total 4 Economic empowerment 15 Liquid soap training 16 Crafts making 17 Baking Sub-Total 5 GRAND TOTAL 10.0.
20
30,000
600,000 500,000 51,100,000
162 135 13,811
2 5000 2
4,000,000 1,500 3,000,000
8,000,000 7,500,000 6,000,000 1,000,000 300,000 22,800,000
2,162 2,027 1,622 270 81 6,162 0 135 270 405 0 4,054 2,027 1,622 7,703 0 270 135 135 541 28,622
500
2,000
500 500 200
30,000 15,000 30,000
500,000 1,000,000 1,500,000 15,000,000 7,500,000 6,000,000 28,500,000 1,000,000 500,000 500,000 2,000,000 105,900,000
Innovation
Unlike most community interventions whose impact only lasts as long as the project execution time, Tusimbudde Rwamwanja Phase 2 project is planned to exert a long-lasting impression in the eyes of the public and evident impact in lives of the beneficiaries. The Project activities have been crafted with the concept of sustainability at the fore front. Many of the project activities shall focus on capacity building of the community dwellers to recreate the events in their own way and subsequently reduce dependence on donations. Also, a support system has been created by mobilizing youths in the community into service associations to brainstorm ideas of how to mitigate the most pertinent community needs of Rwamwanja settlement. These service groups shall be mandated to perform monitoring and evaluation of the project activities and also act as the linkage between the implementing partners and the beneficiaries thus offering valuable feedback on the progress of the project that shall guide the next step of action. 11.0.
Expertise and operational capacity
The implementing Rotaract Clubs carry along a chunk of experience that has been accumulated from the tens of community projects executed in different parts of Uganda. The Clubs have over the years been accredited by International organisations for their very impactful community service interventions in poor communities and have subsequently received recognition for the humanitarian services. The members of 10
these Clubs have a wide scope of expertise in the different fields ranging from public health, nutrition, monitoring and evaluation, counselling and guidance to peace and conflict resolution. These skills have come in handy during the Project planning process and shall be highly relevant during the implementation of the Project. The Clubs have the requisite mobilization skills to organize adequate resources in form of skill, material and finances that shall facilitate a sustainable community project in Rwamwanja settlement that shall substantially change the lives of people positively. 12.0.
Implementing partners
The Clubs are engaging other implementing partners for a joint venture that shall subsequently widen the scope of the Project and spread its impact across a number of people in Rwamwanja settlement. Emphasis is directed towards the organisations that have had past experience in refugee settlements to benefit from the knowledge gathered. On the other hand, a call is made to all generous Organisations, Corporate companies and big-hearted individuals to support this project in any way they deem fit. Below are the implementing partners of the Tusimbudde Rwamwanja Phase 2 project.
Rotaract Clubs of Nkumba Stewards, Bwebajja and Entebbe Airport: These shall jointly fundraise financial resources to procure the requisite materials and also mobilize volunteers that will have their boots on ground while executing the project.
AfriPads Uganda: This award-winning Organisation shall donate reusable sanitary towels and knickers to the school going girls and young women in active menstruation.
13.0.
Financing plan.
Fundraising for such a big project is no mean feat. That put under consideration, the project team has laid down a number fundraising strategies through which financial and material resources for project execution shall be realized. Below are the fundraising strategies. Club fundraisers. The Clubs shall organize a series of joint fundraisers whose proceeds shall be devoted towards the execution of the project. These fundraisers shall appeal to the general public to partake in the execution of the project by supporting the cause financially. Partnerships The Project team is to engage other Rotary, Rotaract Clubs and other stakeholders and well-wishers for possible partnerships towards the implementation of the Project. The partners shall be engaged on the services and products they are dealing in and will be urged to either contribute in kind or financially. Corporate Social Responsibility An appeal will go towards Corporate organisations to add their reputable name to the noble cause through their Corporate Social responsibility mandate. This shall be done through personal interactions with the relevant officers in the Corporate organisations through which highlights will be made on how much the organisation can reap from being part of this noble cause.
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Grant sourcing The Project team will lobby for a grant donation from international funders who may find interest in the Project. The project team is willing to observe the donor compliance requirements especially regarding procurement. 14.0.
Why partner with us
A partnership with Rotary and Rotaract Clubs offers a unique marketing platform of the Company’s products and services and also unlocks new networking opportunities with the Rotary fraternity which later translate into sales. Below are the additional reasons why Companies and other stakeholders should partner with us in the execution on this noble cause:
Relationship building with the community
Creating brand awareness
Reaching a whole new audience
Boosting company morale
Unlocking new networking opportunities
Direct Sales
Enhancing the Company image through corporate social responsibility
Improving Company visibility and reputation in the community
Having Fun and team building
15.0. S#
Project team Name
Position
1 Hassan Ssemambo 2 Ramlah Kawooya 3 Rogers Sentezza Banjo 4 Allan Atuhaire 5 Gabriel Matovu 6 Francis Maovu 7 Kafumbe Anthony 8 Ninsiima Yoweri 9 10
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Phone