Katooke people’ forum and Bufunjo people’ forum advocate for improved service delivery in the health and education sector

Since 2016 ToroDev has been partnering with 20 advocacy forums from 15 in 2014-2015 to  monitor government  services, demand accountability from duty bearer, defend people’ rights and advocate for better services  using both offline and ICTs platforms with an aim of having improved service delivery in the seven districts of the Rwenzori Region.

“As forum members in the months of April, May and June we have been visiting schools and health centre’s located in  Katooke sub country, Kyenjojo district, for example in April 20^th/2016,  we visited  Iboroga Primary school and held a meeting with the head teacher, the school management committee and the parents committee to address challenges that the school faces, challenges of lack of enough infrastructure, lack of staff quarters, poor performance of candidates classes etc, we are happy that parents accepted to support the school and complete four class rooms that were not yet complete due to lack of funds”.  Said Muzoora Godwin the leader of Katooke People’ Forum.

Godwin added we further  visited  Myeri Health centre II to find out the challenges that the health centre faces so that we can present these challenges to the leaders, we discovered that there is shortage of medical supplies, there is no standard maternity ward, few health workers etc, we had a meeting with the In-charge of the Health centre and he  explained that the Project of maternity ward will begin this financial year, 2016/2017 and 8 million is already in place to start something and we also presented the issues to the sub county leaders who promised to address them during their council meetings, we shall keep reminding these leaders until we see change in place.

“As a forum we will struggle to follow up everyone who is responsible to implement any issue that was raised by citizen to see that at the end of the year all are achieved or worked on”  Said Birungi Jane the member of Katooke People’ Forum

“As a forum we have been lobbying for general ward of Bufunjo health centre III, where the hospital ward was very small and very congested, as a forum we have written to Kyenjojo district leadership through the sub county council as per now  we are waiting for the sub county council which  promised to address this challenge this financial year, 2016-2017, we shall follow this issue until something is done”. Tumwisigye Andrew the leader of Bufunjo people’ right.

Andrew added that we have also written a letter to the District health officer Kyenjojo district to lobby for the renovation of the health unit, we asked the DHO to speak to Baylor Uganda to support the health centre, and we are waiting for the response from Baylor now, we thank ToroDev that has given us enough airtime on radio to speak about these issues.

However as forums we still face challenges like having active members who are withdrawing their power in the struggle of monitoring service delivery and promoting, protecting, and defending Human Rights due to intimidation, having no facilitation and lack of hard working spirit in the country.

 We are so grateful to our donors SIDA, SPIDER, NED, CIPESA, ICT4Dem, WOUGNET, Indigo Trust for supporting the work of Advocacy forums.