As part of BAMM (Blog About Malaria Month)
I will be featuring brief interviews with my coworkers at Stop Malaria Project
(SMP) and Malaria Consortium (MC) in the Soroti office.
Note: SMP is implemented by MC, which
provides technical assistance to the project.
Badru
Gidudu Walimbwe is the Technical Team Leader for the Teso Region at SMP.
A: Where are you from?
B: My
original district is Sironmko, near Mbale, but my family lives in Kampala.
A: What did you study?
B: I received a diploma in medical entomology and parasitology at
Mulogo paramedical School. Then, I got another diploma in health services
management from Uganda Christian University. Then, I got my bachelor’s degree
in social work and social administration.
I have a master’s degree in social sector planning and management from
Makere University.
A: Where have you worked
before SMP/MC?
B: Before SMP, I was with AMREF (African Medical and Research
Foundation) as a project assistant. The project was integrated for Malaria,
HIV/AIDS and TB in two central districts. I worked in Rukingiri as a vector
control officer at their district health office. Throughout those jobs, I worked at the
community level in home based management of fevers, net distributions, and IRS
(indoor residual spraying). Rukingiri is a highland district where malaria was
really low, but now those areas are prone to epidemics, maybe due to climate
change. That’s why we had to do IRS there, which helps reduce epidemics.
A: Why did you want to
work for SMP/MC?
B: All my initial experience was in malaria since school, and then
comes SMP, in so many districts. I thought wow…this is the best opportunity for
me to make a contribution to the malaria world. That time in the beginning we
were targeting 45 districts, but then we reduced to 34. The fact that it was going to work through
the national health system and local government level, I understood all the
dynamics and interventions, I was excited to be able to make an impact. It was a good opportunity for my career to
grow and make a contribution to the community.
A: What drew you to work
in public health?
B: When I was little, I knew I wanted to be a health worker. Most of
the interventions in health need to be more focused on prevention. It’s more
rewarding to me to put more effort in prevention, than to seeing someone ailing
in the hospital. Working with the small rural communities is easier and more
rewarding than urban communities. The
response is better. You have more
success in rural areas in public health interventions than in urban settings.
A: What do you like most
about your job?
B: The most interesting thing is that you are acting like a
broker. You have this health worker, a
community, and someone who has a little money to offer help. So it’s exciting linking them; someone who
needs support and someone who can provide it.
When people give testimonials about how nets have reduced the number of
malaria cases in the wards, it’s rewarding.
It’s exciting to make a contribution and the result is positive. It’s exciting to think you are reaching the
whole health system and all those health centers.
A: What do you think is
the biggest challenge in malaria eradication?
B: The main challenge is that many people are intervening, but things
seem scattered.
A: What do you think could
be improved in the malaria eradication campaign?
B: We need to repackage the interventions so
it’s not one intervention at a time. We
should do everything at the same time; IRS, nets, treatments, and community
sensitization. Very critical monitoring
indicators should be followed closely to see if you’re really making progress. We
need to work as team, with the districts, SMP, and have everyone on board. We could start on a small scale then make it
large. The outputs need to be monitored.
We need to see what needs to be done at
facility level, and community level. If we do immediate case management, you
are reducing the number of parasites in the community. We need to promote early early early treatment! In
principle, you can have mosquitoes. But if you don’t have the parasites, then
they’re not a problem.
A: After SMP ends, what
would you like to do?
B: Having gained all this
experience, for me this is another opportunity to go to the next level to repackage
this experience and make a significant contribution to malaria control and
prevention, whether it’s a malaria organization or consultancy. I think working in a big malaria organization
would be the best.
A: Can you share a memorable experience from
working at SMP?
B: In Serere (pilot net distribution), we have
this huge thing that everyone is looking at; PMI (President’s Malaria
Initiative), and the district are expecting a lot with logistics and
administration. We need results, quality results, big teams in the country,
district, even outside the country are seeing what your output will be. You’re not trained in logistics, but you have
to implement to make sure the activity is successful. But you’re not in control of everything. Someone else has to order the nets, deliver
them, and they don’t’ come at the time you want. It was a really interesting challenge. There was no 8 to 5, we were having meetings
through the night. You have to balance
being tough and soft otherwise, things won’t shift. The Distribution was a memorable
experience. I was excited when I did the report. Joslyn (Meier, the deputy director of Malaria
Consortium) said it was the best report she’d read in Uganda. You have to work under pressure to get that
final thing.
Stop Malaria Project Uganda is one of many organizations
that host a Peace Corps Volunteer in partnership with the Stomping Out Malaria
Initiative in Africa. The initiative mobilizes and connects over 3,000 Peace
Corps Volunteers in 23 countries in sub-Saharan Africa to work together to
eradicate malaria from the continent. To learn more, please visit: http://stompoutmalaria.org/.
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