Buy a man a fish...

…and you feed him for a day, buy him a rod and teach him how to use it, and you feed him for life.

Last week I witnessed Kiwoko Hospital’s own particular way of following this advice! For many years the hospital has had it’s own training school for nurses and laboratory technicians – I think initially set up to help train staff for the hospital, but now recognised as a good institution throughout Uganda. Friday was Graduation Day, and we saw all the trainees from the last two years come together to get their certificates. I guess it was much like a UK graduation ceremony – plenty of speeches, all extolling using God’s gifts wisely in serving others; a couple of songs/poems from some of the students; the handing out of certificates; etc.

Although the training school is separate from the hospital, we work very closely together, and I frequently find myself teaching the students when they are on the wards. This can be from informal anatomy, physiology, and clinical lessons, to describing different parts of a complex operation! The students (or their families) all pay to be here – a year’s tuition including food and accommodation runs to 1.6 million Shillings (about £500) which is a significant outlay – but this shows itself in their keen-ness and interest and desire to learn. I think the students here put UK students to shame – often they will have lectures/tutorials every morning, be on the wards for a full eight hour back-shift five days a week, and have all day teaching on the other two days. They’ll often study on top of this gruelling schedule, and still be keen for more!

It’s also been said that if you educate a woman, the whole community benefits. Certainly more than half of our students are female, and I think it’s very good to be helping women in Uganda find employment. Women are often treated as second class here, and there’s currently a media campaign trying to advise younger women from becoming subservient to older men, “Say No To Sugar Daddies”! This is also an important message in helping stop the spread of HIV/AIDS. If we can get women into employment after training them, they’re unlikely to find themselves in the position of only being able to survive by finding a man to support them.

I think that investing in people and helping them to help themselves has to be the best form of aid that the developed world can offer countries like Uganda. The actual cost of training is very little in UK monetary terms, and the benefits are huge. I’m very excited about starting to do some more training of my own. Our Endoscopy system is now up and running, so we’ll be actively looking for patients so I can teach Dr James & Dr Peter how to use it! Lots to do, but the normal hospital workload is quite intense at the moment with several doctors away, so the next few weeks will be busy. I’m on call tonight, and it’s been pretty non-stop, so I’ll keep this blog short, and hope to get some sleep later.

The only other thing I’ll mention, that will amuse everyone back home, is that I met my housekeeper’s sister this weekend – Helen is leaving me at the end of September to go to college to do a social work diploma, but she’s arranged for her sister who is just finishing school to come and replace her. There’ll be a few weeks gap before she starts, so I’m going to have to cope without a housekeeper during October! It’s going to be tough… although I’d better get used to it for my return to the UK in January!

Steve