COVID 19 TESTIMONY BY STAFF
I am Lokwii Gabriel aged 26 years and staff of Choose Life Home Based Care, a community based organization (CBO) founded by sacred Heart Sisters located at Naoi Mission, Moroto District in Karamoja region-Uganda. I have been working in CLHBC for 4 years to date.
Choose Life Home Based Care works for people infected and affected by HIV/AIDS in the areas of counselling and guidance, Home follow ups (visits),HIV awareness creation, psychosocial support for clients admitted in the hospital, referral of clients to Matany hospital in case of complications, paying school fees for children infected, and of clients infected with HIV/AIDS, after school and holidays coaching, imparting life skills to the children ,entrepreneurship and literacy trainings for women who are illiterate, supports women with income generating activities, organizes meetings for both HIV/AIDs positive clients and treatment supporters.
In regard to my experience with Covid-19 pandemic which was first reported in China-Wuhan in Dec 2019, and confirmed in Uganda with one case in March 2020 at Entebbe international airport, Uganda is today having alarming cases of more than 40,719 reported with over 334 deaths. It is still a threat in Uganda especially in the south and western Uganda districts.
After the confirmation of the first cases of covid19 in Uganda, there was panic in Karamoja region being the border to Kenya, Somalia and South Sudan which had reported many cases at that time, Choose Life Home Based Care director in consultation with the Board of Governors decided to close the office on 26th/03/2020 until 11th/05/2020. The short holiday became an opportunity for me to be with my family, carry out garden work, unfortunately because of the nature of the area which does not support rainfall I ended up harvesting only 3 basins of sun flower and nothing from other crops. However Covid19 also presented to me more challenges than good at the time, these were; Restricted Movements, Hunger because there was no food supply in the market since transport was suspended, Stress and worry because the office was closed, Police and Soldiers beating up people during curfew times, all these made life hard. Despite of all the above outcomes, CLHBC could still offer me and family food support for 3months and this helped me to; save some money and also buys other things which I was not able to afford. Out of the savings I was able to buy 15 iron sheets, 3goats and a bicycle. I therefore recommend that the office continues to support us the workers with food, soap and sugar once in a while since our salaries are low so that we can also be able to save and buy other necessities for the future. I also encourage the office to continue equipping the staff and clients with the knowledge on Covid19, more especially on the maintenance of SOPs within and outside the office since this ravaging disease is still a threat, yet people out there are becoming reluctant in observing and putting in practice these measures. Thank you to all those supporting choose life home based care that supports the HIV/AIDS positive clients and us in return.