My internship with Raising Voices in Kampala, Uganda has developed my skills and knowledge to work in the field of violence against women prevention. Raising Voices is a locally run and established organization to prevent violence against women in the communities of Kampala. I worked with the violence against women department on the Gender Based Violence Prevention Network and their annual project the 16 Days of Activism. I developed an Action and Advocacy Kit to be distributed to Network members throughout the Horn, East, and Southern Africa. This Kit included a press release, posters, ribbons, pledge card, a community organizing seminar, and a global text message campaign. I also advertised the campaign and the kit though various civil society and networking organizations and the Ministry of Gender. This kit will be distributed to at least 25 organizations outside of Uganda, numerous more inside Uganda, and will be available on the website. My hope is that all organizations will find these tools useful to facilitate days of activism to prevent violence against women. I also spent a lot of time redesigning the website for the GBV Prevention Network and writing and editing pieces for the quarterly newsletter.  The goal of my work was to address the high prevalence and social acceptance of violence against women and men's use of power over women by building a social movement with a gender equality and human rights based approach to prevention of violence.

One of the most powerful experiences of my field study came in the first few weeks and by surprise. Raising Voices helped to coordinate a regional consultation meeting on compensation and protection for survivors of sexual gender based violence. The purpose of the meeting was to develop a formal statement of East African countries to inform the Pan-African conference on the same topic. Many large and small organizations throughout East Africa were involved in the two day meeting discussing the situation of survivors of sexual violence in post-conflict settings and what is needed to address their needs for compensation and protection. I took notes for the meeting and ended up writing the report that was then distributed to all meeting attendees. While I did not have a say of what went into the report, it was informative and enlightening to understand the direction of change in addressing the needs of survivors of SGBV and to formalize their statements and opinions into a report that will hopefully inform policy and organizational changes.

Beyond my scope of work, I had many opportunities to join in several community activities. I attended meetings of the community activists, community dramas, and meetings with larger organizations such as UNFPA and the Ministry of Gender. All of these gave me a glimpse into the numerous levels at which the organization works and all of sectors that must be engaged to create an effective violence prevention movement. I have learned so much from this experience and am grateful for all of the opportunities I was given. My concepts of global public health have been broadened and enhanced in ways that will allow me to continue productive work in the field of violence against women prevention.

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During the period between June 27 and September 5, 2008, I completed a ten-week internship with Population Secretariat (Popsec) and Partners in Population and Development (PPD). These two organizations share an office space and work closely together to improve reproductive health and curb population growth throughout Uganda.

Popsec was founded in 1988 by the Ugandan government as a response to unchecked population growth and poor reproductive health indicators. It is the main education and advocacy body for family planning and reproductive health issues. It is funded primarily through UNFPA, though it receives some funding from other donor organizations. On the national level, Popsec works to promote family planning and population stabilization through policy consulting. On a community level, it is mainly concerned with promoting smaller family size and family planning by working with implementing partners to ensure that Ugandans are aware of family planning and can access services. Popsec liaises with faith-based organizations, district health organizations and NGOs to achieve this.

PPD is a global organization that seeks to promote the issues of reproductive health and family planning to governing bodies and mobilize policy-makers in developing countries to promote population stabilization. The Kampala PPD office serves as the Africa Regional Office (ARO), and is responsible for coordinating with other African countries to promote family planning and population stabilization. It also works with other regional offices to engage in organization-wide activities.

During this internship, I spent the majority of my time working with FHD at Popsec, although I participated in some PPD activities, as well. Throughout the summer, I attended the various meetings and conferences hosted or attended by Popsec and PPD. These included a sexual and reproductive health (SRH) advocacy meeting for policy makers, World Population Day, the Safe Motherhood Conference in Arua and the Stop Cervical Cancer in Africa Conference, among others. For many of these meetings and conferences, I conducted research prior to the event and compiled reports subsequently. These reports were distributed internally to Popsec and PPD as well as to partner organizations and donor agencies.

In addition to these activities, I participated in the planning of third and fourth quarter events for PPD and Popsec. These events included conferences and community rallies, meetings for policy makers and stakeholders and a conference for implementing partners. Challenges and limitations were confronted during regular meetings held within PPD and Popsec to address issues in planning these events.

During this internship, I learned a tremendous amount about living and working in East Africa. I came to understand reproductive health, family planning and population as they occur in the developing world. The skills I honed during this internship included health communication and program implementation, particularly from an international perspective.

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From June 27, 2008 to September 5, 2008, I worked as an intern for the Population Secretariat (POPSEC) in Kampala, Uganda. During these ten weeks, I worked primarily for POPSEC’s Family Health Department (FHD). In addition to working with FHD, I also participated in activities with Partners in Population and Development (PPD), another organization housed in the same building.

POPSEC works primarily on advocating for better reproductive health policies within Uganda, and its main focus is improving
maternal and child health within the country. FHD works closely with other stakeholders such as the United Nations Populations Fund (UNFPA) to promote reproductive health advocacy both within government and on the ground. The department’s core responsibilities include organizing and offering technical support for reproductive health projects throughout Uganda and programming and monitoring the progress of these established reproductive health projects.

During my internship with POPSEC, I assisted in the preparation and report-writing of various reproductive health conferences, including the Safe Motherhood Conference with the First Lady of Uganda, a parliamentary meeting to encourage members of parliament to advocate for improved access to family planning within Uganda, a cervical cancer conference, World Population Day, and a reproductive health commodity security conference for members of the East African Reproductive Health Network (EAHRN). In addition to preparing and writing reports for these conferences, I also had the opportunity to write an article about my reactions to population and reproductive health issues in Uganda.

PPD, the organization which I interned for on a much smaller scale, is an inter-governmental alliance that works to promote and mobilize resources for reproductive health, population and development purposes in Africa. Its work consists of policy dialogue, networking, building strategic partnerships across Africa and sharing experiences of best practices regarding population, reproductive health and development. My work with PPD has consisted primarily of helping to conduct research for their East African Reproductive Health Network (EARHN) Conference and assisting in the planning for both the EARHN Conference and the PPD Eastern and Southern Africa regional parliamentary meeting taking place in September.

My internship with POPSEC and PPD has enabled me to see first-hand the real challenges that Ugandans and East Africans are facing in terms of reproductive health and sexual rights. Being able to witness community member participation at various meetings and conferences has illuminated the struggles that families here face on a daily basis in regards to their reproductive health options. I have seen how difficult it can be to encourage the government and community members to embrace family planning, for there still exist many myths and misinformation regarding the consequences of contraception use. I have learned so much from POPSEC about the process of advocating for reproductive health at higher levels of government and how Uganda’s increasing population is affecting the health status of its citizens.

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I conducted my field studies requirement in Kampala, Uganda at the Health Communication Partnership (HCP). I was placed in a project that HCP gives technical assistance to as well as funds (through USAID and PEPFAR) called Young Empowered and Healthy (YEAH). The YEAH initiative aims to reduce HIV/AIDS and teen pregnancy rates among Ugandan youth 15-24 years old. They utilize entertainment education to reach youth and initiate changes in knowledge, attitude, and behavior that will reduce their vulnerability to HIV and early pregnancy. Various communication channels are used to disseminate the messages of YEAH, most notably a radio serial drama entitled Rock Point 256. Further, YEAH produces posters, comic books, and DVDs that are used by partnering organizations to spark dialogue among in- and out-of-school youth during interpersonal activities.

During my 10-week internship, the opportunities afforded to me far exceeded my initial expectations. I was asked to plan and facilitate a week-long workshop with the goal of developing concepts and illustration ideas for materials for a new campaign targeting young men. This included mobilizing participants and four focus groups, preparing creative briefs and communication strategies, leading workshop activities, and conducting follow-up meetings to finalize materials. I also took on a supervisory role for monitoring the activities of our 15 partnering community-based organizations in the Kampala region that utilize YEAH materials and messages. The assignment allowed me to travel all over the Kampala region inquiring about partnering organizations’ successes, challenges, and future plans. Furthermore, I was given the opportunity to contribute to the scripting and theoretical base of the Rock Point 256 serial drama and comic books; participate in a strategy workshop as well as a work planning and budgeting workshop; plan and develop materials for the “The Rocks”, a Rock Point 256 awards ceremony; and exhibit YEAH materials during World Population Day 2008.

Working with YEAH greatly increased my understanding of the materials development process, funding and partnering relationships, organizational structures, and program planning. Additionally, I realized how difficult it is to challenge the social and cultural norms surrounding reproductive health and sexuality in Uganda, which is integral to reducing HIV prevalence rates. Most importantly, however, the experience allowed me to experience the rewards and challenges of working in a developing country and specifically, Sub-Saharan Africa.

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This summer I worked with Raising Voices in Kampala, Uganda. Raising Voices is a organization committed to preventing violence against women and children; the programmatic focus is to provide organizations with the tools and skills necessary to improve capacity and to prevent violence. Co-founded by Lori Michau and Dipak Naker, Raising Voices has been growing as an organization since 1999. The newest project undertaken by the violence against women project of Raising Voices (the other being violence against children) is SASA! SASA! is a multimedia toolkit aimed for community organizations throughout East and Southern Africa working to prevent both violence against women and HIV. The toolkit contains trainings, posters, facts sheets, a DVD, and other related items for both HIV prevention and violence prevention organizations to incorporate into their programs. There is increasing evidence of a linkage between violence and the spread of HIV, but thus far few programs and interventions address the two epidemics simultaneously. SASA! means “now” in Swahili and is first and foremost a tool intended to help community based organizations incorporate issues of violence and HIV into their projects immediately.

I had four main tasks in my work on SASA!:

1.) To develop interview guides that can assist health care providers discuss the links between violence and HIV with their clients. These guides were short and easy to read while incorporating information important for health care providers. The guides aim to provide health care providers with the tools to discuss these two sensitive and stigmatized issues with their clients who may be impacted by either violence or HIV.

2.) To develop training modules that teach health care providers the purpose of the interview guides and how to use them in their day-to-day work. These training modules incorporated participatory modes of learning such as role-play activities and group discussions.

3.) To develop persuasion sheets aimed at convincing professionals and leaders in communities that these issues are connected and that action must be taken to prevent both. These sheets were short and to the point, intended to be stand along pieces that create action at different levels of the community.

4.) To develop advocacy power point presentations intended to educate audiences about the connection between violence against women and HIV and to inform people about what they can do to prevent the dual epidemics.

Working with Raising Voices was an amazing experience. It helped me grow as an individual and as a professional, and helped me to gain practical skills in the public health field while working in an international setting.

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UYDEL was founded in 1993 by Rogers Kasirye. It targets street and slum youth in Uganda with drug and alcohol abuse prevention programs, vocational skills, STI treatment services, behavior change communication (BCC), and educational programs. Its mission is “to empower disadvantaged and vulnerable young people with cognitive life skills and livelihood skills so as to make them useful citizens of Uganda.” UYDEL is based on the core values of non-discrimination, community involvement, gender sensitivity, and full promotion and protection of all rights of marginalized young people.

Young people aged 10-24 make up 34% of the population of Uganda. Uganda’s HIV/AIDS prevalence remains steady at 6.4%, and among youth, prevalence is approximately 3 times higher in females than in males. Despite high levels of contraceptive knowledge, use among youth in Uganda remains low, due in part to negative attitudes toward condom use and perceived difficulty of obtaining condoms. Uganda also has one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates in Sub-Saharan Africa, at 31%. In response to problems such as these, UYDEL implemented an adolescent sexual and reproductive health (ASRH) project, funded by United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and coordinated by Ms. Jacqueline Nassaka at UYDEL. The goal of the ASRH project is to provide access to and promote utilization of comprehensive reproductive health information and services for vulnerable adolescents.

The ASRH project currently operates in three districts of the country, Kampala, Mukono, and Busia Districts. The project uses four basic strategies: provision of health services at drop-in and outreach centers, peer-provided services, behavior change communication (BCC), and vocational skills training. A trained health worker provides STI treatment, counseling, and referral services at a UYDEL drop-in-center in each district. Additionally, in order to make services more accessible to hard-to-reach youth, the health worker provides weekly services at an outreach post in a slum area in each district. The ASRH project also trains peer providers in each district and sponsors a weekly BCC session for youth which may include group discussions, music and drama, recreational games, and educational films. Finally, UYDEL provides vocational training in fields such as hairdressing, tailoring, carpentry, and mechanics for a group of youth.

From August through October 2006, my role was to assist in the implementation and evaluation of the ASRH project in these three districts. I worked closely with UYDEL staff to conduct training sessions for peer educators, community leaders, and street and slum youth. I also helped to conduct consultative meetings with stakeholders in the districts. I designed participant evaluation forms for these meetings as well as pre- and post-tests for evaluating the effectiveness of training sessions. I also completed site visits to each of UYDEL’s service sites and evaluated the provision of youth friendly services by the health worker in Kampala, making recommendations for ways to improve service delivery. Finally, I worked with staff to develop a sustainable evaluation plan for the ASRH project, which staff will continue to use upon my departure.

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My field studies took place at the Uganda Youth Development Link (UYDEL) in Kampala, Uganda, under the supervision of UYDEL’s executive director, Rogers Kasirye. UYDEL is an indigenous NGO, founded in 1993, that targets hard to reach vulnerable youth between the ages of 10 to 24, including adolescent commercial sex workers, drug users, abused children, and teenage parents. UYDEL’s mission is to empower disadvantaged vulnerable and marginalized street and slum youth with sustainable life skills that will enable them to become happy and productive citizens of Uganda. UYDEL provides services for youth in reproductive health, drug abuse prevention and rehabilitation, HIV/AIDS, behavioral change, child protection, counseling and rehabilitation of sexually exploited children, and vocational skills training.

I worked specifically on the program called the Youth Friendly Services/Adolescent Reproductive Health (YFS/ARH) Project, which aims to bring reproductive health information, family planning services, STI counseling and treatment, and HIV/AIDS counseling and referrals to the many street and slum children between the ages of 10 to 24 at drop in centers and the more remotely located outreach posts. Housing is also provided at these centers for a few young people who have no other alternative or who need an escape from an unhealthy home environment. In addition, the YFS/ARH program provides activities such as music, dance and drama, which is practiced and performed by the vulnerable youth for the community and contains messages about HIV/AIDS and reproductive health. Weekly behavioral change counseling sessions are held at each drop in center, among other group activities. These activities are provided to lure the children off the streets by offering fun and healthy activities, while providing valuable information about health for both the young people participating and the community members who attend the performances. UYDEL also provides and encourages these young people to come to the drop in centers for free vocational skills training. The vocational skills training that is provided is chosen with the input of the young people so they can have a choice about which skills they want to learn at UYDEL. This component exists so that the young people, most of whom are not in school, can learn income generating skills, giving them the option to get off the streets and make money in a way that does not put them at risk (many of them are currently engaged in prostitution or drug sales to enable them to survive).

Together with UYDEL’s executive director and the project coordinator, I managed the the YFS/ARH program which involves one drop in center, one outreach post per district, and one paid health worker/nurse who provides STI counseling and treatment and makes referrals for other needed services (such as voluntary HIV counseling and testing (VCT), which UYDEL does not provide). In addition, it includes social workers who manage the drop in centers, and 20 volunteer peer educators who recruit and educate the young people in the community about UYDEL and about reproductive health issues. They also distribute condoms and IEC materials.

This program tries to involve the community at every level, including youth, business owners, local community leaders, and other community members. They are all invited to an informational meeting and asked for support and advice on an ongoing basis during program implementation.

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I spent an incredibly high-energy summer doing a combination of office work and field work toward the prevention of gender based violence (GBV) in a high-density urban area of Kampala, Uganda. I worked with two, linked organisations: Raising Voices and the Centre for Domestic Violence Prevention (CEDOVIP). After having spent several years doing crisis work in response to violence against women, it was refreshing to see comprehensive, effective programs working to prevent violence.

I worked on five main projects within my internship. First, I worked on capacity building and training for staff, community volunteers, and community counsellors of CEDOVIP through workshops in the office and in different community settings. Second, I assisted in the development of a media campaign (radio and print) on the links between HIV and domestic violence. The third objective of my field experience was to work on a newsletter that will appear on a website aimed at linking GBV prevention organisations in East and Southern Africa. Fourth, I worked to support the development of two community theatre troupes in making their dramas more participatory. The troupes were already functioning within Kampala, but noticed a need for more community participation. We worked on improvisation and facilitation skills, developing their dramas to a point where they could freeze between scenes and hold a community discussion about what the characters should do next. They were then able to change the dramas based on community ideas. Finally, I conducted a field review and sat on a committee to develop a needs assessment tool for the creation of a program to increase male involvement in GBV prevention. Male involvement in prevention work is relatively new throughout the world, but increasingly seen as the key to making real headway in ending violence against women. This program was perhaps the most inspiring of them all, given the potential for significant change in GBV prevalence if the project is successful.

Throughout all of these projects, I had the benefit of being a part of an incredibly healthy, inspiring group of staff. They constantly pushed each other forward at an inspiring pace, truly intent on creating a change in the world around them. The internship was exactly what I needed to see-true sisterhood across cultures, deeply committed to making peoples' lives better. In addition to the internship, I managed to have some good adventures in Uganda as well. Between tree-climbing lions and baboons stealing my camping food, I definitely feel like I had the benefit of a good educational experience during the week mixed with a great vacation on the weekends.

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