Mar 2023 Newsletter: A Letter from BAMA USA Executive Director in Uganda
Kasaali Village Savings and Loan Association meeting with Enabel and BAMA staff
I've spent the last month working at our headquarter offices in Kalisizo, Uganda. As always, time spent with our staff of dedicated health professionals was inspiring with so many new ideas on how we can expand our impact improving the health and wellbeing of tens of thousands of women and children served through the BAMA Programs.
I am often asked, especially by large international government funders: We know the wonderful work you are doing, and we see that you are dramatically improving health outcomes in the four districts where BAMA partners with 59 health centers and hospitals. But how will your impacts be sustainable? How can we ensure that the improvements that your staff have worked so hard to achieve will outlive BAMA and our funding?
To be truthful, the problems that we are addressing everyday, the longstanding inequities in access to health care, and the lack of resources in countries like Uganda have deep historical roots and there is no 'quick fix'. We begin with building trusted relationships with district government health systems and the national Ministry of Health to improve access to quality care. We have made great progress in steadily increasing local accountability and ownership of the initiatives first introduced by Babies and Mothers Alive.
But today I want to share with you another essential 'piece of the puzzle'. This past week, we hosted a wonderful team from Enabel, the Belgian Development Agency. Along with Spring Fertility, and the support made possible through your donations to BAMA USA, Enabel is the primary funder of our Mama Rescue Project, providing life saving transport to close to 30,000 women in labor over the past two years. On Wednesday, we visited the Kasaali Village Savings and Loan Association (VSLA). Chaired by Agnes, who is also a BAMA Mama Ambassador, this dynamic group of women meets weekly to ensure that families in their village are saving for health, supporting access to the wide array of services provided by BAMA-partnering health facilities. When the Kasaali VSLA began, women contributed just 200 Uganda Shillings per week, or about 5 US cents. Currently, contributions stand at 1000 Shillings per week, and the association, now fully registered, has $600 USD in its bank account. They have also established a small catering social enterprise, with all profits going to their health savings fund.
Village Savings and Loans Associations are an essential part of our community mobilization efforts to increase access to quality health services. We are currently developing e-wallets for our Mama Rescue mobile phone platform. This will allow families to cost-share with BAMA, helping to secure the future of this life saving transportation initiative for women in labor. To date, BAMA has enrolled 1674 women in 40 VSLAs, our goal is to more than double that number in 2023.
Your support provides the seed capital that is the catalyst for all of our work. Thanks to you, the women of Kasaali receive the support they need to build healthy communities in Uganda.
Wishing everyone a happy Easter, Passover, and Ramadan,
Marc
