Following the outbreak of Coronavirus / COVID 19, Chief Okwalinga and Chief Emong launched an appeal for 6 weeks in April 2020 to raise funds to buy medical aid to support health workers in Teso, Uganda. This appeal raised 9 million shs cash plus another equivalent of 8 million in medical items provided by Ateker International Organisation (AIDO)
Through this appeal, we procured the following items which are extremely in short supply in Uganda’s hospitals plus large storage water tanks and medicinal seedlings.
· 1,000 pieces of gloves
· 200 digital body temperature thermometers
· 200 litres of hand sanitizer.
· 2,000 seedlings of anti-malarial trees.
· 2 water tanks of 1,000 litres each.
These items were successfully delivered to His Highness, Papa Iteso, The Emorimor, Augustine Lemukol Osuban at a colourful ceremony at his Palace in Serere district on 17th June 2020.
Papa Emorimor then duly handed the items over to the respective representative Resident District Commissioners and Medical Directors of the beneficiary Hospitals of Serere, Ngora, Atutur, and Soroti.
Speaking to the media, the beneficiaries were full of excitement for receiving the donation. One of the RDC’s said, we are grateful to Teso Education Fund in the UK for donating these items. They will help our health workers and our people. He said, whereas the government was providing these items, they had started with other districts but they were yet to benefit.
This is project is part of our long-term plan to improve the health of the poor people in Uganda, especially in Teso sub region of eastern Uganda, where 35% of the people cannot afford 3 meals in a day.