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Uganda
SON Students in Uganda
Students share their experience
Today's students are going a long way toward improving health where it's most needed - literally as well as figuratively. In December, nine students from the MECN program spent 10 days in a Buseesa, Uganda, working in collaboration with the Sisters of Notre Dame and Nicholas Smith, a UCLA graduate student in African Studies, to address basic health needs. It was hands-on education the likes of which the students could never receive at home - practicing in a place where health problems are substantial, resources are minimal, and education about prevention and other health strategies is lacking.
But with great need came the opportunity to make a tremendous impact. The two students who organized the effort, Alison Wagoner and Alecia Hanson, conducted an assessment - a combination of research on health statistics for the region and a visit by Hanson in September - to determine how they could be most helpful. And in the short time they were in Uganda, the UCLA School of Nursing students were remarkably productive.
They worked in four clinics, giving immunizations and providing HIV testing and counseling. They provided maternal health care, including labor and delivery, as well as family planning services. At one clinic they saw more than 100 patients per day - exceeding what the clinic typically sees in a month - as they worked with Ugandan nurses to offer physical assessments and care. And each afternoon, a group of students would accompany a parish priest and a Ugandan nurse as they traveled by foot into rural villages. After long hikes through the jungle, the students were greeted by song and dance performed by the village members, and introduced to the community by the priests. They spoke to village groups on public health issues and visited individual homes to work with families.
"Between the patients we saw at the clinics, and our house and village visits, we treated or at least talked with almost everyone in the surrounding community," says Hanson. "As much as anything else, we were able to help lift spirits and motivate people to think about ways they could try to get themselves out of the poverty they were experiencing."
The students experienced constant reminders of the vast differences, both cultural and socioeconomic, between Uganda and the United States. At the end of one village visit, residents presented them with a huge bushel of bananas and a live chicken. "They just put the chicken in Alecia's hands," Wagoner recalls. "In African culture, where chickens are expensive and food is scarce, a gift like that is symbolic of great appreciation." On the ride home, Hanson sat with the chicken in the back of the car with feathers flying everywhere - a memorable if somewhat farcical experience.
But what Wagoner will most remember are not the differences but the connections she and her peers made with grateful Ugandans. After she led a seminar on HIV/AIDS and healthy living, several village elders spoke for the group. "They were almost in tears, saying how happy they were that we had come here to share our knowledge," Wagoner says. "We were helping to build a global community."
