Monday 28 August – Part 3

In the afternoon the Uganda country office gave me a presentation about their work. The areas we work in have a high level of visual impairment. There is a significant amount of trachoma in many areas, and residual blindness amongst some of the older people from the days when oncho (river blindness) was rife. We have submitted a proposal to International Trachoma Initiative (ITI) for parts of Uganda to be included in the Pfizer azithromycin donation project, and are optimistic that we will be successful.

Education for visually impaired children seems to be further advanced in Uganda than in some of the other places I have visited. There is universal primary education, where everyone is now entitled to 7 years of education. However, there is still the usual issue of equipment, Braille books and adequate teachers to ensure that all visually impaired children can benefit. The numbers involved are significant when you take into account the fact that the average number of children per woman in Uganda is seven. I was worried about what happened to all these children after primary education – apparently the President is seeking to introduce universal secondary education next year.

One major challenge which our programme faces is that the number of districts is proliferating. We work closely with government at the district level, and each time a district is split, there is pressure for us to duplicate project management, which obviously increases costs.