Orphans and Vulnerable Children 2 Reflection

On Wednesday, our group split into two sections for the day's site visits and activities. One half of the students visited the Naguru remand home in the morning and the Sanyu Babies Home (SBH) in the afternoon, while the other half did the opposite. When the group came back together for the reflection session in the evening, it quickly became apparent that each group had very different experiences. The dialogue that resulted from evaluating the different experiences yielded some of the most emotional, profound, and meaningful reflections thus far.
In the first part of the reflection session, we asked the students to describe the day's experiences in one word. While students from group 1 used words such as "touching, interesting, and interactive," students from group 2 said, "deceit, misery, reality, and sad."
Next, we asked one person in each group to summarize their group's activities as objectively as possible. A member of group 1 described how his group participated in a debate with youth at the remand home. At SBH, group 1 held, fed, and played with nearly all 50 babies. In contrast, a member of group 2 described that her group was told not to hold children at SBH and instead made beds and washed windows. At the remand home group 2 held a question-and-answer session with all 180 youth. Upon leaving, they witnessed a boy being caned as punishment.
As we moved into the final part of the reflection session we asked students to compare and contrast experiences. The caning incident became a starting point for discussion, and students were visibly shaken by the occurrence. As facilitators, it was interesting to hear comments of guilt voiced by group 1 members who seemed to have a more positive experience overall.
In the end, the group engaged in a group discussion and came to two conclusions. First, we concluded that for as hellish as the circumstances may have appeared at the remand home and at SBH, very similar circumstances exist in US orphanages and juvenile detention centers. This realization made us consider why Americans feel that they must visit these sites abroad but often do not bother to explore similar places in their own communities.
Second, some students raised concerns about the orphanage "marketing" its babies to international visitors. Some expressed that they felt uncomfortable playing with the babies because they did not think it was fair to favor their own pleasure over the attachment the babies so often feel when visitors only briefly pass through their doors. This led to a larger discussion about our motives and the purpose of our site visits. When someone mentioned "selfishness" as a motive, another student asked us to consider how much international aid workers' might really be motivated by self-interest. As she said, someone once argued, "the third world is the playground for the first world."
We ultimately concluded that trying to discern the purity of our motives and those underlying all international aid efforts is a very complex task. However torn or confused we felt after this reflection session, we appreciated the opportunity to step back and really examine our experiences.

Children and HIV Study Group Reflection

Our day consisted of visiting Baylor AIDS Initiative, MU-JHU, and Mulago Hospital. We gained more information on how these institutions are assisting the needs of mothers and children affected and infected by HIV/AIDS. As the Children and HIV group, while we were greatly benefited from this day, we also wanted to see in the reflection session how the other groups applied what they saw. Furthermore, we had been back in Kampala from Rakai for no more than a few days, so we were curious about how the students felt at this point. 

We began our session with a light game called "Do Unto Others What They Would Do Unto You," in which we saw many interesting things, including a student pretending to peel matoke while doing the "robot." Then, we had an interesting discussion about our expectations and also how they have been met. Many of the students agreed that this trip has met or even exceeded their expectations. We also discussed about how it felt to be back in Kampala, a big and crowded city with many aspects that contrast with our rural experiences, such as toilets and a faster pace of life. We then asked students to reflect on the trip to the institutions and what they found to be surprising or interesting. We discussed the privacy of the patients and information confidentiality. Some felt that there was a lack of privacy in the wards, while others believed it is because Mulago is a teaching hospital, so students regularly observe. One student noticed that there were separate public and VIP sections within the hospital, according to how much patients can afford. As a response, a student felt that regardless of where they are, all patients should be treated with respect and dignity. Another student was surprised by the sheer number of mothers visiting for the first time at a late stage in their pregnancy, raising the question of why they would not come sooner. Also, many students noticed a stark contrast between the internationally funded institution (Baylor) and locally funded hospital (Mulago).

We went on to ask about how the students could relate their experiences to their own themes. The water and sanitation group realized the significance of clean water all throughout the hospital and institutions. They were also surprised at how children who survived HIV ended up dying from diarrhea. The OVC (orphans and vulnerable children) group had learned about a special program that Baylor offered to these particular children. Something that stuck out to the education group was how children of educated mothers were more likely to survive than those with uneducated mothers. Finally, the maternal health group realized that as much as mothers had access to transportation, once they arrive, access to services seemed to be insufficient. 

Personally, our group came to realize just how many are affected by HIV, and we gained so much information on our topic, from PMTCT programs to the counseling of adolescents and caretakers. Also, we learned more about the process, in terms of where patients are referred to, depending on their situation. For example, children are treated at Baylor, while pregnant mothers go to MU-JHU. We look forward to learning and reflecting more from our stay in Kampala, as well as gaining more insight on how children with HIV are affected. 

Conducted Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Making our way back to Kampala

We came back to Kampala via one of the Ssese Islands, taking two ferries and spending the day and night between in Kalangala on Bugala Island.  While the accommodations were not everything we had hoped for, we did have a relaxing day before plunging into our week of investigating youth health and education in Kampala.

Goodbye Party

Before leaving the Rakai area we had a goodbye party with the host families in Masaka.  There were many speeches and lots of dancing, including the seeming requirement that you dance on your way to the front to make your speech!

Special thanks go out to Fred, Agnes, Stephen and Eric at Rakai ... this never would have been such a success without all of your help!

Service Project Results

Eventually these will all be stitched into a panorama, but for now use your imagination!  The students paid to have the wall whitewashed and then designed and painted a mural.

More Pictures -- Service Project

Some pictures of the students doing the service project at the school last Saturday, Jan. 14.

Reflection Blog: Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC)

The end of our home stay and the day at Ssese Island marked the halfway point of our trip. This happened to also be the time when we ran our reflection session. Instead of focussing entirely on our theme topic of OVC, we decided that this was a great opportunity to reflect upon the experiences we had in the first half of the journey and those that are coming up in second half. For example, we discussed the lessons we learned throughout the home stay that changed our perspectives on topics that we easily take for granted. In particular, after the home stay many realized how important it is to conserve water in the rural areas, and how we greatly abuse the amount of water we use due to luxuries such as indoor plumbing and showers. 

While we were working at the Rakai Project, the group started to delve into the controversial topic of research and medical ethics. Since it spurred such a heated but interesting debate, we decided to mention the topic again in our reflection session. Therefore, we asked questions such as, "would you rather donate your labor for a volunteer project, or just your money?" and "would you rather work on treatment for HIV/AIDS patients or work on preventing HIV/AIDS with behavior change?" After the discussion of these questions, we concluded that there is no right or wrong answer to these questions. It's a matter of what you personally value and the intentions that you have.

For the second half of our stay in Uganda, we are giving a lot of attention to our theme group topic and presentation. After having a very eye opening experience in the rural village of Rakai where the prevalence of orphans (especially from parents who were victims of AIDS) is very obvious, we are looking forward to finding comparisons of the treatments of orphans in a more urban setting. Tomorrow we are visiting a very popular orphanage called Sanyu Babies Home and then we plan on visiting smaller, more typical orphanages during our free day in the city on Thursday.

Conducted Sunday, January 15, 2012