MANDALA TRANSFORMATION FOUNDATION, Inc.
PRESENTS
THE ART OF ONENESS



Kirowooza Guardians, June 2015, Masaka Village, Uganda


Educated professor has interview with guardians of 312 orphanages/students. Guardians are helping them to grow up and to receive necessary education. They are grateful to have opportunity to discuss about poverty facts and health issues.

Interview with student's professor. He shared information about emergency need for clean water.



Lack of safe water and improper sanitation
There is a problem of shortage of water sources. The available water is of poor quality and is collected from distant areas and this has led to spread of water borne diseases such as typhoid, schistosomiasis, fungal skin infections mainly ringworm and recurrent diarrheal diseases amongst the children.

   

The surrounding environment is a good habitat and breeding site for mosquitoes and this has made the children very vulnerable to malariaa serious leading killer disease here in Uganda.

Footwear and clothing
As you might have observed, all the children walk bare-footed with rags around their bodies. This has increased the prevalence of jiggers, worms and retarded growth due to excessive exposure to humidity and dust as well as transient anemia, foot sepsis and malabsorption.
There were also some children with traumatic wounds and very rashy skins.

Over crowding of the children in the house of residence
The children are excess in that almost semi-permanent structure and they have no beddings'
The house is dusty and with inadequate ventilation and this has led to acute, recurrent and chronic respiratory tract infections amongst these children.

The most RTIs were influenza, coryza, sinusitis and ear pus discharges which are automatically occurring as a result of no medications.
The ear and nasal infections if left untreated to chronicity will definitely result in permanent hearing and sense of smell impairments thus retarded learning ability.

Under-weight for Age children
When these children were weighed and their weights correlated to their ages, over 460 were found to be under weight in comparison with their ages. I am not sure of the source of their food but this indicator always points to inadequate feeding or unbalanced diet. Possibly also the poor quality of water, many illnesses untreated adequately. The poor sanitation may be the cause although the feeding part needs to be examined to a greater extent.

  Kitchen

Excreta and waste disposal
There are no recommendable excreta disposal methods such as Ventilated improved pit latrines. Waste is scattered and this with no pit latrines increases the risk of epidemic out breaks as already noticed from the few children suffering eye infections.
The following recommendations were made in order to improve the life of the children in this orphanage.

Health care system
As of the beginning, medical visits should be effected at least once a week or at most once every two weeks. The facilitated health worker(s) should visit the children and offer the sick ones prompt treatment, carry out screening and offer health education to the staff who helps these children.

The second alternative should be to employ a full time nurse who will be available for children 24 hours and he/she would treat them on time, carry out education and would participate in mass de-worming.

The third and most sustainable though expensive solution is the establishment of an Orphanage medical clinic. The clinic if well organized will definitely yield some money through offering services to the surrounding community at subsidized fees. It is also possible to get some assistance from the government through the Primary health care funds.

Green environment and permanent accommodation
Improvement is needed on the existing houses, grass pasparum and any other species. It is necessary to construct more houses that would be dust free and less crowded.

Most of the houses are built by mud School, Bedroom, Living room Toilet for 312 barefoot orphanages

Sanitation, Hygiene and Feeding
The pit latrines and waste pits are quite an emergency before these children get cholera outbreaks and they are quite cheap here in Uganda.

If children would receive more clothing and shoes, there will be an improvement in the hygiene. If they would have available relaible water source their hygene would change into excellent situation. The cheapest and permanent source of water is to establish a bore hole and/or bore holes. Balanced diet can be achieved by involving the older children in agriculture that they can grow their own food. At the same time they are learning skills which will enable them to survive latter on. With a little facilitation the teachers can start with farming at the orphanage's place and grow crops, have natural habitants (goats, chickens, birds ...)

Transport system and general safety
It is necessary to get at least one van for quick referral of the very sick children, health and other activities for the orphanages. The candles are always considered unsafe due to the big risk of fire and burns. They do not have electricity. You may solve this by installing a solar system which will provide adequate, safe and cost effective light source.