April Australian visitors to Yotkom

On March 29th , Dr Andrew Wright will be accompanied to Uganda by Jo ( a midwife ) and Kate ( a Paediatric Nurse ) .

Andrew, Jo, Kate, Phil

In April they will be joined by Phil, a builder and project manager from Australia who will help finalise the last stage of the Yotkom Maternal and Child Health project construction.

We are planning to move into the new building within a month.

Maternal and Child Health and Hospital admission facility nearing completion

Current primary health care facility seeing 300 patients per week

The team from Brisbane will be joined by Richard and Denise from Western Australia.

Richard and Denise

Denise is a midwife and Richard a business manager and both have made a commitment to live and work with our Ugandan team on a permanent basis starting in April.

Our goal is to partner together over the next two months  to interview and  recruit Ugandan midwives and establish firm policies, procedures and clinical guidelines  for the commencement of maternal and child health services at Yotkom Medical Centre..

We also intend to work toward starting an anaesthetic service  and building the capacity of our operating theatres to undertake surgical, orthopaedic and obstetric cases.

This year we are asking donors to consider helping us with the purchase of essential equipment needed to undertake these services.

Pastors John and James from Tasmania will be travelling to Uganda to visit South Sudanese communities in Refugee camps in Northern Uganda. They will be sharing on reconciliation and healing after trauma and dislocation.  Over Easter they will be conducting training seminars for Yotkom leaders and the team of medical and support staff.

James and John

Help Yotkom provide exceptional health care to mothers and babies in Uganda

If you have a heart to help women and children in Africa, we believe our Yotkom project is a good place to invest and make a real difference .

For a woman and an unborn baby,  going through a pregnancy and delivery in this part of Africa is fraught with danger.
Death rates are among the highest in the world and over 30 times higher than in an advanced country like Australia.

At Yotkom we have a goal to make a significant contribution to halving these death rates from their current levels of over 300 per 100,000 live births.
There is ample evidence that 80 % of these maternal and newborn deaths are preventable with the implementation of known evidenced based high impact interventions.

In Northern Uganda, Yotkom already has an established Primary Health Care facility employing over 40 Ugandan health workers and support staff where we see an average of 300 out patients per week, providing diagnostic services (laboratory and radiology ), admission facilities and orthopaedic and surgical interventions.

By donating to our expanding work, we know you can make a significant difference to the lives of women and children in Uganda.

A fund raising and awareness web site has been set up to focus on the establishment of a strong maternal and child health service at Yotkom Medical Centre in 2019.

If you would like to learn more or give a tax deductible donation, please visit the site :
MYCAUSE

Or you can make a donation to our Australian bank account  ( see details on this page )

Yotkom Agricultural Project

Generous giving from Australia has made it possible for Yotkom Uganda to purchase a parcel of agricultural land  approximately 25 km from Kitgum .

Our vision since we were formed has been to seek ways to build self reliance and foster sustainability in our medical project .
Local income generation is a key to this.
The development of an agricultural project was something we dreamed of, which now, thanks to targeted donations, has become a reality. It is very exciting .

The land is 125 acres in size.
We have employed an experienced Ugandan agricultural advisor who will assist us raise over 130,000 eucalyptus seedlings in the next three months ready for planting out at the beginning of the rainy season in March 2019.

The nursery and clearing and planting activities will provide much needed employment to quite a number of local workers.

We are trusting for some significant harvests over the next few years , bringing in much needed funds to help keep our medical project viable into the future , asssisting us to continue providing affordable, accessible, high quality health services to Northern Uganda .

We have seen nearby eucalypts have reached head height in 5 months !
Great growing conditions !

Tuberculosis Management approval

The Yotkom Medical Centre has been reviewed and assessed by the Department of Health and been deemed to be a facility worthy of approval to identify TB patients and initiate Tuberculosis treatment using medications provided for free .
Tuberculosis is a major health problem in this community and there are increasing numbers of multi drug resistant cases .
There is a link between HIV /AIDS and Tuberculosis and it is likely that Yotkom will receive approval to be managing HIV patients , providing life saving medication for this condition.

Maternal and Child Health construction update

The construction supervisor from Australia, Phil, was recently in site with Andrew Wright to review progress on the new hospital wing.  Patrick is the Ugandan builder in charge of this project. The current estimated time for completion is March 2019

We have two large underground water tanks to collect rainwater from our roof

Inside, we are constructing reception counters and about to start tiling.

A container of hospital beds was also recently transported to our site from Kampala .

Working together to ensure transparency

Our team from Australia include Shirley Kampe, our Australian charity Treasurer.
She is spending time working with Faith and the other Ugandan administration team , especially on the Quickbooks billing and accounting package used at Yotkom Medical Centre .

Lynne Pemberton has also been helping with filing in the office.

Australians on the ground in Northern Uganda: November 2018

Over the next 6 weeks there will be several Australians spending time with our Ugandan colleagues at Yotkom Medical Centre.

On October 26th, Dr Andrew Wright will be travelling to Kitgum with Phil, an Australian builder who has been supervising the construction of the Maternal and Child Health facility .
Phil has made several visits to the site to work alongside  Patrick , our Ugandan builder and his construction team.
The facility is nearing completion with painting now having commenced and tiling about to start.
There has been a lot of digging of underground water catchment tanks.

On November 3 rd, Anne Wright, Shirley Kampe and Lynne Pemberton will travel together to Uganda from Australia.

Shirley Kampe is the Treasurer of Yotkom Uganda Ltd in Australia and will be working with the African administration team  to audit the financial records on Quickbooks. An end of year financial statement for  Yotkom in Uganda will be prepared, suitable for submission to the Ugandan taxation department.   This will also be useful for accountability and transparency in Australia so that donors can see clearly our financial expenditures.

Lynne Pemberton will be taking a particular interest in working alongside our Yotkom chaplain, Rev Concy Amigo and encouraging her in her work. She will also be building closer relationships and contributing to team education and mentoring.

Anne Wright will be spending much of her time reviewing , monitoring and evaluating policies and procedures , especially in the operating theatre, with the sterilisation and  vaccination process being of particular concern . Her past experience working in an Australian General Practice on the accreditation process is being put to good use.

Anne, Shirley and Lynne are all directors on the board of management of the Yotkom charity in Australia so we thank them for their willingness to be with the Ugandan team for these weeks and gain a better understanding of the project as well as making some very valuable contributions to the work being done .

In mid November, Richard Nicholls will be joining us from Western Australia.

Richard (who has a background in law, business administration and disaster management ) and his wife Denise ( a midwife)  are looking at ways they can contribute to the work of Yotkom Uganda in 2019.