Newsletters
Join our Email List
Home
Afrinspire & Global Health
Produced for the occasion of the launch of the Cambridge Global Health Year
2011-12: 'Prioritising Partnerships for the Global Health' hosted by the Humanitarian Centre Cambridge
Afrinspire is a UK registered charity which supports African indigenous initiatives in development. We are active in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan. We are not a ‘medical’ charity but in our role of supporting African partners and their organisations we have provided a wide range of health-related assistance and we are familiar with the status of health care provision (sparse) and the health issues in Africa.
Generally in Africa there are little or no free public medical services such as in UK. The majority of people cannot afford to access any health care. Afrinspire has helped people to access health care for the first time and in emergencies.
Basic health care
We have funded the supply of simple medical supplies to Sudanese school children who have lived without any medical services up to the current time.
We have funded the de-worming of Batwa (pygmies) children and the access for the Batwa to health care.
The impact of AIDS
The impact of AIDS in Africa is immense. Almost every family has additional children being cared for due to the loss of parents. Communities are also caring for groups of aids orphans and it is a recurring theme for our partners. We are dealing with many requests for support of these orphaned children. There are many other charities and government initiatives delivering medical help to HIV+ clients, but Afrinspire is actively supporting orphans and some women’s groups of AIDS sufferers.
Water and health
We have funded the construction of water tanks at the homes of community health workers in rural areas. We have a project which is protecting springs, each of which serves 200 people and bring transformation from an unprotected spring being a health hazard to improved health for all the spring users. Our programme of functional adult literacy includes a basic training in sanitation and hygiene at home, creating pit latrines, bathrooms and safe water use which improves the health of thousands of people. We provide consultancy to broker funds for water supply programmes in remote rural areas taking water and sanitation projects to places not yet reached. We actively spread water knowledge around our network of partners.
Equipping with medical supplies
On several occasions we have shipped medical supplies to Mengo Hospital, Kampala in association with the Friends of Mengo Hospital. We have also sent stethoscopes, lab equipment and surgical instruments for doctors in Uganda.
We have shipped specific medical supplies to individuals such as stoma bags which are not easily obtained in Africa.
In conjunction with AHW – Aid to Hospitals Worldwide – we have sent beds to equip clinics in Mbarara District, Uganda.
Working with the disabled
We have assisted the orthotic workshop of the Foundation of People with Disabilities (FPD) in south-west Uganda to continue its operations of making appliances for the disabled. We have shipped materials and supported the workers and workshop costs. Partnering with Voluntary Service Overseas over a 4 year period we enabled a series of volunteers to build the capacity of this organization. It is currently receiving a grant from the Round Table International for a Jaipur Limb Project. We funded a ‘disabled drama group’ which has an advocacy programme to represent the disabled and challenge the stigma often attached to the disabled by rural African society.
We have been the major sponsor of PDDO – People with Disabilities Development Organisation in Kabale, Uganda. The aim of PDDO is to bring help to disabled people in the 20 sub-counties of Kabale District, providing counselling and guidance to the disabled. It is led by one of our partners Anne Kobusingye who is elected by the disabled people to represent them on the District Council.
Accessing health care
We are alarmed at the situation for the rural poor who have no access to health care and what happens when simple illnesses and accidents go untreated, often developing into serious cases and deformities, blindness, and even death. Whilst we cannot help everyone, we do assist some people either to access treatment or cope with their disabilities. We have helped the referral of individual cases to doctors and clinics.
We have connected disabled children to a ‘medical camp’ where they could receive corrective surgery to limb deformities, thus enabling them to walk upright for the first time.
We have funded medical operations for some individuals who are in life threatening situations; usually this is emergency medical assistance to certain individuals within the Afrinspire network. This has resulted in lives being saved but unfortunately we have also seen some lives lost through lack of treatment or treatment too late.
Medical professionals
We have helped to place some skilled professional medical volunteers into medical institutions, such as a physiotherapist and pharmacist who both worked in Rugarama Health Clinic in Kabale, Uganda.
We are currently sponsoring a Ugandan medical student who is training to be a doctor.
We raised £23,000!
Thank you to everyone on behalf of Afrinspire who helped us reach our fundraising target. Last week in The Big Give Christmas Challenge we reached our £10,000 target which was doubled by the Reed Foundation and with a few more donations and Gift Aid we've reached a total of £23,000!
These donations will be used throughout the year to make a huge difference to the communities we support through our partners in East Africa. Read more about what we do.
Wellbeing & Poverty
Wellbeing & Poverty Pathways is an international research partnership exploring the links between poverty and wellbeing through research in rural communities in Zambia and India. It is an ESRC (Economic & Social Research Council) and DFID (Department for International Development) research project.
Read about a new approach to assessing poverty and wellbeing:
For more information: www.wellbeingpathways.org
 Wellbeing & Poverty Pathways | [ ] | 1012 Kb |
Computer shipment has reached Burundi!
Goods Shipping News
Afrinspire's shipment of computers has safely arrived in Burundi. These computers have gone to 5 organisations in Burundi.
Read more about Goods Shipping...
One of Afrinspire's principal activities has b
een the shipping of computers to Africa. This is done in an effort to help bridge the digital divide between the rich west and Africa, so that African communities can catch up. The UK has surplus computers which still have many years of life left in them, yet they discard. We are using technology heavily as a way of combating extreme poverty; we are using technology to do things charities could not do ten years ago.
The biggest need is not for more computers but rather the money to ship them. It costs Afrinspire £40 to £50 to place a computer in-situ and working in the centre of Africa. It costs Afrinspire £5 to send 10 kilos of books (the size of a Xerox box of 5 paper reams) to the centre of Africa, which is less than sending a parcel from A to B in the UK. Our process is effective because we are involved at both ends of the chain from UK to Africa. Our operation is cost effective because of the high input of volunteers. We are re-using good equipment which is surplus or redundant in the UK but still has several years of useful life in Africa. This avoids the computers entering the waste chain in the UK. But our priority is not re-using computers. Our priority is the people in Africa – putting valuable resources into their hands so that they are enabled to make the progress they want to.
In 2010, our shipping of computers to Uganda was put in jeopardy because of a regressive and controversial law to ban the import of second hand computers. Is this to address waste issues or appease influential businessmen? It certainly denies access of the poor to technology. The ban came into force in March 2010 and for the moment Afrinspire has shipped its last computers to Uganda until this law is resolved. But we continue to ship to Rwanda, Tanzania and South Africa, and are considering the many other requests we have from other African countries. Uganda is now set to lose out. We have a track record of sending good quality tested computers to schools, organisations, and even the President's representatives. We have been told that our computers are better than the ones sold as ‘new’ in the shops of Kampala. The computers have equipped school training rooms, vocational training centres, small internet café businesses and NGO’s. We hope for a groundswell of public opinion to bring pressure on Ugandan politicians not to pass this law which is holding up such a valuable contribution to the development of Uganda.