Here in KITGUM, Neil has been busy preparing for a one day team building workshop for Yotkom and the Bregma Clinic . This will be held all day this Saturday at one of the local hotel venues. We expect about 20 people to attend and we are trusting it will be a very valuable time of sharing, hearing feedback and building strong work relationships. We will be sharing together our vision and values and reinforcing the faith basis and motivation of our medical work.
In the last couple of days, Neil has been spending individual time with some key leaders in the Yotkom project. It has been really helpful for people here to be able to share and Neil has some great insights into ways that we can make improvements. Some of our Ugandan team have also had some great ideas. Today, it was suggested that meeting for prayer at the clinic in the waiting room every morning would be worthwhile. We will be starting this practice tomorrow at 0830.
Andrew has been able to meet some key people involved in reaching out to the Nodding Syndrome patients. Most interestingly, an Anthropologist who has been doing a doctorate on the subject is living in a house directly across from us and we have met up on the day we arrived . Also, one of the Government officials involved in community outreach has spent some time with us and Mike, a counsellor who works with Lois Ford amongst Nodding Syndrome families came to the Bregma clinic today for discussions. This is all very helpful as we work out ways Yotkom can assist with providing care to Nodding Syndrome patients and their families. Dr Vincent will also be attending an important meeting in Kampala on Monday (an 8 hour bus journey there and back ). This has been arranged by Dr Bob Colebunders and will be attended by Health Department, WHO and CDC officials.
One of the main goals for our time here is to finalise the employment of a Pastoral Care/ Chaplain within our team. We discussed this today and have some ideas to implement.
This afternoon, Andrew sat down with Yotkom leaders and set out some targets together for what we would like to achieve over the next 2 weeks. We have a lot to do but we are praying it will be a productive time together.
Neil and I are very grateful for a house which has been available for us to rent in a compound here. We have a special visitor, Margaret who is cooking our meals!
More news will follow.
